Eve Benson, Hero
by SisterOfThalia
Summary: After what I'd been through almost two weeks ago, you'd think nothing could shock me. Well, you'd have to be wrong. It started as I ran...-Sequel to Eve Benson, Demigod. No, the title is not braggy, we all know that demigods are also called heroes.-
1. Surprise, Surprise!

**Yup, I'm back! Welcome to my new story, if you loved the first one, this will be just as good, maybe better. Sorry the first chapter is short, all I really had to write about was Eve running her tail off. The chapters will get a lot longer, trust me. Well what are we waiting for? Read on!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.**

**Claimer: I own everything else besides Kristen, aka PandaWithATaco, who owns herself.**

**Enjoy yourself as we sit back, relax, and enjoy the- AHHH! Rosa, what are you doing here? With a spear?**

**Rosa: Just get on with it so they can read about me, alright?**

**Oooo-kaaaay. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!**

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__****EVE BENSON, HERO**

**Chapter 1**

**Surprise, Surprise!**

After what I'd been through almost two weeks ago, you'd think nothing could shock me.

Well, you'd have to be wrong. It started as I ran down the sidewalk, towards the lesser of the two homes I had: Symphony. I hadn't been there since…oh, fine, ignore my trying to be dramatic, I had only been gone for about ten days. This was the eleventh day, and I was now going back to school. But little did I know just how much had actually happened since I'd been taken away by Barry, no thanks to Mr. Cyclops.

I was running so fast you may not have believed it unless you had seen it. My camp necklace flung itself at my face, at times blocking my vision, as I ran, my hair deciding to accompany it by, too, flying at my eyes.

I jumped over the fence guarding the school, and ran as fast as possible. No one was going to stop me from going home, no one. Unlike a few days ago, when everything was stopping me from doing what I wanted and monsters could kill you at any moment.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I now encounter monsters on a daily basis?

Bet you didn't expect _that_ coming from your "average" fourteen year old.

Nope, you probably didn't.

My feelings were fighting each other as I ran down the asphalt in possibly the biggest hurry I'd ever been in. I loved Symphony, I really did, and I wanted to come back more than anything. And I was here, I wasn't _about_ to go back to Camp and waste my school year practicing archery or rock climbing or whatever there was to do. I'd rather be at school with Lola and hang out in the dormitory and read (well, come to think of it, that wouldn't work seeing as I'm heavily dyslexic) or write (that would again be a problem, actually, I wouldn't be able to read what I was writing) or watch TV or, unfortunately, do homework that I didn't want. As long as I was home.

But at the same time I almost wished I could turn back, go to Camp, become a year-rounder, see familiar faces such as McKenna and Zachary Smith, or Louis Miller, or Percy or Annabeth or Katie, or maybe Isabelle, possibly even Kristen, and we all know that I was freaked out by her, but more than the others, Greg Willins and Kyle Delnz. They had proven to be two of the best friends you could ask for, even if Kyle was pretty dense. Albeit, Kyle was brave somewhat anyway. Greg wasn't quite so bold and courageous, but he was pretty smart and very friendly. He was shy when I had met him, though he'd gotten a bit braver, only slightly, when it was time for the quest. Greg wasn't normally too chatty, and stayed far away from the girls most often. However, the guy seemed to have taken a liking to me and proved it by kissing me at the end of my days at camp for the summer. I shoved him away and ran, but he didn't care and followed. He was creeping me out a bit, but now that I was gone, I missed him. And Kyle and Percy and all the others.

I began to slow down just a bit; I was nearly there. But I was still charging towards the doors. I jumped over almost everything that was in my way. I hop-scotched across hop-scotch tiles and proceeded in running as fast as my legs would carry me.

_Almost there_, I thought, panting. _Almost there._

I almost collided with a rusty old trashcan and lost my balance for a second, but I kept on. I turned a corner and ran, and ran, and ran, did I mention I was running? I think I did…

I nearly halted altogether when I realized that there was a kid in front of me. They ducked and I jumped over them. "Sorry!" I called as I ran past them. All I could hear coming from them was a muttering of, "Yeah, yeah…"

I was getting so close that my insides tingled with excitement. I made a turn by an entrance and slammed the door open and ignored the harsh slamming sound it made behind me. I ran down corridors and hallways, occasionally flicking a fly out of my way when it decided, "_Hey, let's annoy Eve!"_

Lola would be waiting, I had to go faster. I knew how annoyed she would be if I was late, and Lola was not the patient type anyways. The girl would kill me if I was any later. Another corner did I turn until I saw her and a very happy expression on her face, holding up the key to our room. She didn't look angry at me in the least. Which confused me, therefore leading to _my_ utterly confused expression that she'd have to look at.

"Come on, come on!" Lola shouted, exhilarated. Her smile shone wide, curly hair glistening in the light of the lamps. "Time to see..." she started. I was excited, too, but clearly not as excited as her…

Wearing large smiles on our faces, she opened the door to our old dorm, but what we saw shocked the both of us, and our smiles were wiped clean.

The room was empty. All empty, save the old TV that needed replacing and the now neatly-made beds. All of our possessions were gone, missing. We hadn't taken that much stuff when Barry had taken us to Camp a little while back. I knew that much.

"…Nothing…" Lola breathed.

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**So, did you sit back, relax, and enjoy the- AHH! Rosa, what are you doing here AGAIN? WITH A SPEAR?**

**Rosa: Where am I?**

**You're not here yet. Wait until several chapters in, you impatient, lousy little dork. :U**

**Rosa: O.O THERE'S SOMETHING BEHIND YOU!**

**WHAT? WHERE? *looks around***

**Rosa: Made ya look!**


	2. Time For Terror

**This is it, this is the biggest chapter I've ever made, EVER. 3,856 words long. I've heard of people who have chapters that are 10,000 something words long, which I find to be insanity, but this is really great. Enjoy!**

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****Chapter 2**

**Time For Terror**

It's not fun to find out that the room you have been living in almost your life has been vacated. It's even _less_ fun when you get told _why_ all of your possessions are missing. Why, you ask? Well, I can either tell you why or you guess. I suppose you _want_ me to tell.

We gaped at the room, utterly shocked. Coming back had been pointless. Home was no longer home. The place where I had lived so long was practically demolished, taken away from me as if it was a paper in the wind. I refused to believe my eyes. Nothing was here. I'd have been better off staying at camp, I would have never known about this. But it was too late now. I couldn't go back to camp now, too late, all too late. I'd be stuck living in some abandoned apartment with Lola until the summer. Or on the streets. Because none of my things were here, and neither were Lola's. My excitement was ripped right out of me.

I thought about everything I'd been through, all my years at this place, and now it was gone. My life had been here, and now it had been taken away. Other than camp and occasional field trips and triple-dog-dares from other people, I'd never left the grounds. But it was gone now. Gone.

I was shaken back to reality when I heard the rough sounds of someone clearing their throat, and I turned around to see a very tall, stern looking woman with odd, dark pink glasses glaring at us with her arms crossed. Lola jumped and gave out a slight shriek, turning around slowly and warily to face her.

"Come with me, _now_."

I had not recognized her from all of my years here, so why we followed this mean-looking woman, I haven't a clue. But torturing ourselves by staring at the empty room was no happy alternative, so we hesitantly followed the woman who looked like she could beat us at any moment.

Now, you're probably thinking, "I thought she was going to tell us why everything was missing?" Well, I'm about to tell you.

We walked down the hall with the woman, and I turned to Lola. "I don't like this," I whispered.

"Me neither," she responded in a more scared tone than mine, which was ironic considering our parents. She was practically hugging herself, as if it would calm her down. I half expected her to poke herself awake, if she thought it was a dream. Or maybe the time was right to get revenge.

I poked her in the arm, and when she questioned why I did it, I lied by saying, "I'm trying to wake you up, is all."

She raised an eyebrow. "Not sure I believe that, but okay."

We finally turned the last corner, and entered the woman's office, or whatever the place was. The place was filled with books and shelves of books and books on top of desks and a stray book here and there. Basically, it was the average Athena child's dream. Pictures were scattered across the walls, and the portrait would always have some old historic guy in it, wearing a wig or a dress-robe or whatever the style was back in the time of the portrait's "birth". The wooden desk by which the stern-faced lady was now sitting had a large stack of papers, _more_ books, and a bouquet of small roses at both the left and right sides. The walls were a slightly lighter shade of pink than her glasses, then there was a creamy white line, and a darker shade of pink below it. All of the strange colors that I had never been exposed to very much reminded me very awkwardly of Circe's island, and I had a feeling that the Athena cabin had twice as many books somewhere in there.

"Sit," the woman said coldly.

We uncomfortably took two of the three seats on the opposite side of the room and stared blankly at her. I tried to make out the name plate sitting on the desk but with my dyslexia and the distance combined, all I could make out was, "Ms. hCungninma", though with those letters, I suspected it would be "Ms. Cunningham" or something like that.

"So…what's going on, Miss…Hcungninma?" Lola asked casually, slowing down on the name as she was trying to decipher what on earth the name plate said. She was crouched down, squinting.

"Don't slouch!" she snapped. Then she forced herself to look delighted, and folded her arms. "Hello ladies, and welcome to Symphony Orphanage," she said in a much softer tone that only made me dislike her more.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, welcome to Symphony Orphanage," she replied in a harsher tone again.

"I heard you the first time, you bumbling, lousy idiot."

"I beg your pardon?"

I stoop up. "Oh, I said that I knew that already, and then I called you a bumbling, lousy idiot. Is that enough for your tiny brain to process or do you need more?"

She got up in rage. "How dare you—"

Lola came up to me grabbed my shoulder. "Calm down," she whispered.

"…Sorry," I said reluctantly, though I wasn't particularly sorry.

"_Good._ Now, as I was saying, welcome to Symphony Orphan—"

I curled my lip and scowled. "What do _mean_ we're an _orphanage_ now?" I demanded of her. But the woman just held her hands up in defense and said, "I'm sorry, girls, but _yes_. We decided it was high time we make the change. It's been planned for about two years now…but, anyhow, the poor kids have been given donations, the homeless have been homed, and you parentless kids," she said, pointing at the two of us in turn, "are in Symphony Orphanage now. Not too hard to figure." The way she had said "you parentless kids" sounded as if it was meant to be hurtful and accusing. It wasn't exactly our fault, now was it?

"I can't believe you're doing this to us."

"I can," Lola whispered.

We left Ms. Idiot and stormed off to our old dorm. I plopped onto what used to be my bed and groaned. "If she knew who our parents were…"

She sighed. "You know we can't tell anyone."

"I know that, Lola."

The two of us lazed about, confused. It was all over, and there was nothing we could do but lay here until someone came to take us away. Nobody else was here, they were at wherever this orphanage was. Today would be Lola and I's last goodbyes to the place forever. We'd go to the orphanage and then camp every single year, and we were fourteen, nobody wanted a kid that old. We'd be stuck there forever, seeing people come and go, miserable.

Then again, sitting here forever was not exactly going to be any better.

To answer that question from earlier, our things had been taken to the orphanage. I learned that the next day when a man working at the orphanage drove us there and led us both to our rooms. You heard me right, too: rooms. We weren't going to be staying in the same room like we always had. I was stuck with two girls who seemed kind of annoying, and Lola was put with two dense tomboys with attitudes that would probably have even Lola begging for mercy (they were that stupid and annoying).

The room was positively horrifying. Three sets of bunk-beds sat on the borders of the tiny room, and the two girls in there were having a pillow fight…with pink pillows. It dawned on me that my pillow was pink, the beds were pink, the _walls_ were pink. The only things that _weren't_ pink were the carpet, a small dresser, and me. The two girls both wore pink. The room was a pink nightmare, only a freaky Aphrodite kid could ever like this place. When I first entered the room I did a double-take, and so did the girls in there. They had clearly not expected me coming.

The dirty blonde walked up right away. "Rebecca Roberts at your service, call me Becca…"

I refused to take the hand she was offering up for a handshake. I moved around her and looked around. I sat down on the bed where my stuff was and groaned. I didn't want to be here, nothing would ever make me want to be here. Absolutely nothing could ever brainwash me into liking this place.

The dark-haired girl sat down on her bed while 'Becca' reached for a hairbrush and began to brush her hair, looking into a pink mirror (go figure). She looked at me. "Hey," she murmured.

I looked away. I'd rather try to read gibberish (and with dyslexic eyes, that's a bad thing) than stay here. I questioned whether or not Lola was feeling the same way, one door across. Most likely, yes, she was. This place was a nightmare. If it was all pink over there, too, she'd have a coronary. Granted, the girls over in her room were a bit more like her, but I could perfectly see the room being pink as well. I had no doubt that when the other girls left, she'd cover up every bit of pink with black or gray. Anything but pink, she was all for.

I laid down and began to drift off, and soon, I was asleep.

The dream came to me almost instantly. I was sitting on a hill, surrounded by followers of Kronos not only watching my every move, which was hard to even do considering I was chained to a post, while somehow still working and training and going about their daily business. It was terrifying, what they were doing. I couldn't even look in a different direction without seeing them staring at me or seeing monsters killing each other, just to see them returning several minutes later, sometimes I knew it was hours later, even if this was just a dream and it didn't necessarily have times.

An _empousa_ walked up to me and knelt down: it was Mrs. Dailey, of course, my least favorite monster. How had she not been killed already? She was a monster, they got killed easily if you had the skill.

"Don't count on freedom any time soon, demigod. We know just how to get rid of you, and we will. When your friends come on that quest to come and poorly attempt to save your petty little life, they will do their utter best…which is, unfortunately for you, not enough. They will see you die."

"Not if they can help it," I snarled, but the voice didn't belong to me. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. One of the many things I hate about demigod dreams: they never explain a thing. You can learn lots, but just simply not enough.

She whipped my face with her fiery hair and went off to attend to her daily duties. I sat there in pain, my eyes closed. I couldn't move, which was a given considering the chains, but I could move my arm just enough that I could feel my face, and there was now a long gash on my cheek. It stung more than anything I had ever felt in my life, and it was only a dream.

I awoke with a start. I was not in danger, but somebody else was. And their voice was all so familiar, but barely so. I tried with all my mind to place the voice, but nobody was coming to mind. It wasn't Rosa, it wasn't Isabelle. Then who could it be?

The dark haired girl, who looked to be about twelve, shook me, thinking I was still sleeping. "It's dinnertime. Wake up."

"I am awake," I pointed out.

"Oh," she said. "Sorry…well, come on, it's dinnertime, is it not? You've been sleeping for hours…a blonde girl came in earlier, got worried because she saw how you were fidgeting around when you were sleeping, almost like you were hurting…she said something about bad dreams…what was she talking about?"

_Oh, shoot,_ I thought, panicked. _What do I say, what do I say…?_

"Oh, uh, we go way back, you see, and she knows I tend to get nightmares, is all," I lied.

She raised an eyebrow, like she didn't believe me. She gave it a moment, but then said, "Ok, that works for me. Did I mention it was dinnertime?"

"Yes."

"Well, come on then! Becca is already down there, along with all of the other girls."

I followed her out the door and looked down at her uncomfortably when she stopped in the doorway to say, "Oh. I'm Jasmine, by the way." Then she continued on and skipped down the hall and then downstairs to a dinner table with a bunch of other girls. I didn't know if this was some sort of girls-only orphanage or what, because I wasn't seeing any boys lurking about.

Jasmine sat down and patted the seat next to her, motioning for me to come. Luckily, on the seat beside that, Lola was there, glaring across the table at her roommates, so I immediately took the seat.

People were already talking, especially one girl in particular. She looked like some Goth chick, and she kept droning on and on about her dad.

"Dad's gonna come for me, ya know…he'll be coming next month," she said drearily.

"You say that every month, Kira, and he never comes," a girl with ginger hair a few seats down said matter-of-factly.

I turned to Lola. "Do you think they're always like this?" I whispered.

"Oh, yeah. Kira is one of the two girls in my room…she would _not_ stop talking to me about how her dad would save her from this dump."

I rolled my eyes and started to eat what was on the plate: chicken, corn, other things I wasn't too fond of but ate anyway.

Dinner was boring and hardly worth telling about, so I'll skip to about fifteen minutes later when everyone was going back to their rooms. I walked next to Lola up to the time we had to go our separate ways. This orphanage was awful, it didn't even have the decency to put Lola and I in the same room.

I reluctantly followed Jasmine and Becca into the room and closed the door. I plopped onto the bed, listening to the other two blab on and on about things I didn't care about. As I got drowsier and drowsier, I could hear them less, but I was pretty sure they were talking about me. I fell asleep again, and had a dream quite similar to the one I'd had earlier.

I sat there staring at the horrific scenes, everything was terrifying. The worst part was: I wasn't the only camper here.

There was a boy, by the looks of him he was about eighteen or seventeen, who was being carried by a couple of Laistrygonian giants. He was struggling terribly, shouting for help. I wished I could aid him, but being stuck to a log, that was out of the picture. I caught a glimpse of his camp necklace swaying around, he had four beads. His camp t-shirt looked two sizes too large and his hair was a mess. He had fresh cuts and bruises all over his body.

"Let me go!" he shouted. But the monsters only laughed, and carried him off to a cave where I could hear the clanging of swords and _dracaena_ hisses. I tried to pay attention to what was going on in there, but I was rudely interrupted by another _empousa_. It was not Mrs. Dailey this time, but she looked so much like her that I tried to curl up in a ball and hide myself, as if that would really shield myself from her (hey, a girl could hope, right?). She hissed at me. "Your brother will be so terrified for you, it will be almost hysterical," she said, laughing a tiny bit. I didn't know who she meant by my brother. There were tons in the Ares cabin.

"Don't bring him into this," I snapped, though the voice still was not mine.

"Oh, but I will. And we'll have him and your friends killed, but only after they've seen _your_ death…oh, I do hope they hurry."

"Chiron wouldn't fall for it. He'd know it was a trick and would make sure that nobody went after me. He knows everything."

The _empousa_ just smiled. "A little too much, demigod. But, alas, he cannot stop us. He is just a horse, really. No match for the army of Kronos."

I glared, and then she scratched my face with her freakishly long nails and gave me more scars. I winced. As she laughed at my pain, I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the cave and grimaced. I knew that could not mean something good at all.

The monster left, and soon, two _dracaenae_ came out of the cave, one carrying a scythe. They were hissing and laughing, and though I could not hear much through all of their snake-like hisses, I did catch the word "death". The camper I had seen was gone and I did not even know who he was. Pain jabbed at my side as I fought back a tear. I may not have known who he was, but I still felt bad for him, and the thought of death ripped at my heart. It didn't matter if I knew them or not, it didn't matter who my father was.

The snake woman with the scythe – the other one just stood watching – slithered over to me and took a good hack at my arm. I screamed, but my eyes soon opened and I no longer felt the pain. Jasmine and Rebecca stood over me, their faces pale with worry. I spotted Lola on the other side of the room wearing a nightcap, scowling at nothing in particular.

"Eve! Are you alright? You screamed bloody murder."

How the two knew my name, I was unsure of, though it was probably Lola who told them. But at the moment, I could care less how they knew. "I…I'm fine…just a…just a bad dream," I lied. I was not fine, I had just seen a boy die via horrifying demigod dream. And it was not just a bad dream—demigod dreams told the truth almost always. The horrifying, evil truth.

I sat up, and breathed hard. Becca went to her bed and immediately fell asleep, a night mask pulled over her face. Jasmine climbed up the ladder that protruded from Becca's bed and clambered onto her own bed.

Lola sat down next to me. "Someone die?" she asked in a cracked whisper. She sounded more mature than she normally did, but perhaps it was only because I had never heard her talk in such a whisper, and even if I had and just didn't remember, that probably would have been years ago.

I nodded.

"Was that someone you?"

I shook my head. "No. It was a boy from camp…I didn't know who he was, but it was horrible."

She looked down. "I had a dream tonight, too…I was…" She paused to look at the other girls to make sure that they were asleep, and when she heard Becca snoring loudly and Jasmine breathing lightly, faced the other way and looking comfortable under the covers, she nodded affirmative. "I was in a strange place. No idea where it was…everyone was fighting… me, you, Kyle, Greg, other people I didn't recognize…we were fighting against Kronos' followers. Kronos wasn't back, but his followers were darn loyal to something that's not even in human existence…anyway, we were fighting. M-Mrs. Dailey was so close to killing you…I jumped in front of you and shouted. It wasn't my voice—"

"It wasn't my voice when I spoke, either."

"That's odd. So anyway, I said something like, 'Stay away from her!' and then…pain was searing through my whole body. I fell to the ground instantly, dead. I, or whoever it might have really been, was dead…and then I woke up."

"Who is this person, do you think, Lola?"

She looked at the ground. "I dunno…"

"Do you think you could describe the voice?"

"You expect me to be able to imitate that? You've got some _high_ expectations there, girlie."

Lola looked very uneasy. The way she kept staring at her feet with a puzzled expression on her face made me wonder what she was thinking. But in a few moments' time, she perked right up and went to the door. "G'night, Eve…don't ponder too much on who it is…it'll only scare you worse." And with that happy note, she left the room.

Jasmine got up wearily. "Who's Kronos?"

"Nothing," I said in a panic. "He's no one. Just someone in our pretend world is all."

She didn't look satisfied. "Fine. But who are Kyle and Greg?"

"Friends of ours," I said. At least this time I didn't have to lie.

She nodded slightly, as if she was now happy with my answer, and went back to sleep.

I sighed of relief. We were safe for now, but this girl was too smart for her own good. Jasmine was certainly on to us.

I looked at the nightstand beside my bunk. It was a picture of my mom, the same one that had been in my cabin. How it got here from my cabin at camp, I didn't know at all, but I was glad to see it. I smiled at it, and looked at my roommates. Hopefully they wouldn't be as annoying as they seemed, but I couldn't tell. As close as she was to figuring things out, Jasmine seemed alright. And as annoying as Becca was, and as loud as her snoring was, the snoring would most definitely keep me awake and prevent me from having more bad dreams. That would be the only reason I could ever like her even somewhat.

And, actually, I was right—the snoring kept me up all night. I thought of how sad Lola had been yesterday, hiding in the Big House attic. I thought of how Greg had tried to kiss me as I ran away from him. I thought of the multiple times I had almost been killed. Good times, right?

I seriously wished I could say that.

I thought of more things, I thought of who the unfortunate person in my dream was. It wasn't Rosa and it wasn't Isabelle. I had already deduced that much. Then who was it? Could it have been Katie? Annabeth? Or a random camper I had heard speak as I continued the daily activities at camp?

I didn't know. But I was worried for them, they might just go the same way the other camper had. Like both _empousai_ had mentioned, they knew a way to get rid of her…and the people who would look for her.

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**Hey...I did tell you in my trailer that you should prepare to be angry at people, did I not? I told you multiple times. Just remember what Lola said about her dream. It will apply to the third story. It applies to the person who is captured.**

**PM me who you think the person in danger is, and I will have you mentioned (probably as someone at the orphanage). Do NOT review your answer.**

**If you're curious as to why the girl said that the other girl, Kira, said that 'her dad was going to come for her' every month when the orphanage deal had just started, it is because it was an orphanage before that, but it just now recently joined up with Symphony. Some of these girls have been at the orphanage before the combination began, and those two are just a couple of them.**


	3. Dear Pathetic Diary

**Before I begin Dear Pathetic Diary, I'd like to notify you of two things. One, my grandfather has just passed, so if I do not update soon, it's because I've gone for a few days for a funeral. Two, and this one is slightly amusing, I must notify you that we have a THIEF. There's someone at my school, a boy I sit next to who also loves Percy Jackson who has read my story, named Noah, is stealing ideas. He stole Lola and says that he will kill her in his sequel (he's writing, too). He can't do that! She's mine and that's one of my survivers! One of my few survivers! Dx Also, he stole plot line. He was going to make it so that one of his characters was wrongly claimed by Gaea (or Gaia...dunno). He gave that one up, but he's still going with Lola. But trust me, I have revenge planned for Noah. Just wait. If you bothered to read that, put the word vengeance in your review ;)**

**Remember, if you have any guesses as to who the person in trouble is, PM me. I won't say if it's wrong or right, though.**

**Enjoy! c[=**

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**Chapter 3**

**Dear Pathetic Diary**

Before I start, I would like you to know that I do _not_ have a diary. I had pieces of scrap paper by my bunk that I refused to refer to as a journal. But in any case, it probably was a diary.

After the first day, I decided I should keep an account of the things that happened to me there until I could escape. I did not write every day, so don't go expecting something for every single day.

_-September 17__th__:_

_We had school today (though I assumed they had it every weekday anyway.) And this school was awful—the math was harder, the science was trickier, the only thing that was a-okay was free time and _after_ school had actually ended when Lola and I were trying to decipher a book on Greek myths that Jasmine had checked out from the library (oh, gee, I wonder why she checked _that_ book out…) Jasmine is totally on to us, it's almost scary. This morning when she woke up, she looked at me and asked, "Have any bad dreams?" I had to pretend I was still sleeping._

_-September 19__th__:_

_Dear thingamajiggy that I refuse to refer to as a diary,_

_There was a room inspection today (it reminded me sadly of camp). Unfortunately, Becca was a slob and got us fifth place. Luckily, Jasmine was able to clean some of it up right before the inspectors (aka staff or authorities at the orphanage) came in and got us fifth place. It's not exactly an upside, but hey, I'm not a _complete_ pessimist._

_-September 25__th__: _

_Poor Lola sprained her arm today. Some of the littler kids were egging her on, trying to force her onto the monkey bars (which were surprisingly pretty high up) and she fell off, tried to break the fall with her arm but fell on it badly and hurt it. She had to go to the nurse straightaway, but all that the lady could do was tell her to keep it elevated and put a cast on it. _

_-September 30__th__:_

_Jasmine had been seriously getting on my nerves. She's been asking me all these questions, all the time, and it's driving me bonkers. The girl even looked up 'Kronos' in the myth book that she checked out and told me that I must have hit my head on something real hard to have dreams about a cannibal Titan. While I didn't blame her for being correct about the whole "you must be a lunatic" thing, I could blame her for being so suspicious and annoying. She even asked me if I believed in the myths. I couldn't say yes to her but I could not say no, either, so I just looked away and decided to become suddenly intrigued by articles on plant cells in my science book._

_-October 7__th__:_

_I had another dream last night. I was chained to the post, just like last time, and I was seriously struggling. I could feel burns on my face, like more _empousai_ had come up to me and whipped me or slapped me silly. The pain in my shoulder was dragging me down. I felt like I was going to be sick. I was seeing more unfortunate demigods get killed every several minutes. I just couldn't stand it. My father may have been the war god, but I was more against war than a lot of campers._

_There was a bit of joy in my heart, though, when a good old, smart demigod came along—a blonde boy, with glasses, ruffled hair, gray eyes, and freckles. He slightly reminded me of Greg, though I'd know in an instant if it was him. I knew who this was, though: Zachary Smith, son of Athena. He was trying to get to me, alright: tried ramming through monsters, killed almost a quarter of them just to get to me. I was darn upset when I saw that Mrs. Dailey was not one of his victims, but I was still quite happy. Hey, it wasn't every day that someone you hardly knew was trying desperately to save your life from a bunch of whack job monsters and untie you from a strange post in the middle of the place._

_He was almost to me, he had almost come to my aid, but at the same moment, a bunch of monsters tackled him to the ground. I gasped. He was cut badly in his right arm, he grasped it tightly and shouted in pain. As long as he wasn't dead, I was struggling to watch, but I was fine. I saw him mouth, 'I am so sorry. I'll come back for you, don't worry,' and then I watched him jump off the cliff. I wasn't hearing screaming, so I had to assume he was not fazed by the long fall. He had to have had a lot of faith that he would live to come and kill monsters, to jump like that and promise to come back. It was risky, in my opinion. I would not have done it._

_-October 12__th__:_

_Kira decided it was that time again: to complain to everybody about her dad._

"_I'm telling you, he's coming!"_

"_Yes, I'm sure he is, Kira. I mean, you've said that every month, and he's totally come every time to come and take you back!" the ginger from my first day at the place said._

"_Or to ask if she's improved, and when he finds out she hasn't, he complains and leaves!" Lola whispered to me cheerily. I chortled and smirked at Kira. I turned to Lola again and asked, "So, why is she here if she has a dad?"_

"_Oh, her dad dumped her here, like, decades ago…got a bit too fed up with the pessimistic old sap…comes back every month to see if she's improved to consider finally takin' her back, but he never does because she's always the same."_

"_How do you know?"_

"…_Kira likes to vent."_

"_And you actually pay attention?"_

"…"

_-October 31__st__:_

_It was Halloween today. Jasmine was dressed up as a candy corn witch (a costume I'd never be able to pull off without looking strange), Lola dressed up as Kira and Kira did opposite, Becca didn't dress up at all but somehow she still managed to look like she was wearing a costume (yes, she wore that much makeup and…terrifying pink things…) I pulled on a camp shirt and necklace and pretended that that was a costume. And luckily, everyone bought it, except for Jasmine, who looked suspicious about it. All I could do that day besides hang out with Lola was glare at Jasmine for being so smart._

_-November 10__th__:_

_It was Kyle's birthday today. The oaf finally turned sixteen. It was weird knowing that he was a year older than me, and if people didn't know that my birthday was coming up soon, people would think he was two years older. It was just really strange for me. The only wish I had was that I could have been at Camp or his house or wherever he was celebrating so that I could be there for him, to congratulate him. Do something to be there with my friend no matter how much of an idiot he could be. But I was stuck in this place with people like Becca and Kira. At least Lola seemed to be alright. She knew it was his birthday, but she was pulling through better than I was. But neither of us could even contact him, and that was what put us down more than anything._

_-December 26__th__:_

_Christmas wasn't the worst day I've had here. In fact, it was probably the best. We all had Christmas trees in our rooms, and we could hang whatever we wanted on it (not including each other, unfortunately for Lola—Kira was really getting on her nerves lately, and she kept looking between Kira and the branches, like she was tempted to do something) and Jasmine and I wrapped popcorn around it, and Becca hung up a few ornaments here and there. The presents came yesterday. Jasmine got one from Becca (it was a pink boa, go figure) and one from the staff (a new watch, because hers had broken). I had something for her, too, of course, but I could only get it to her later because I was working on it. She was happy, though, when I gave her the box made out of paper. It was a dumb gift but I couldn't do any better._

_Becca got a pink picture frame from Jasmine, a pink necklace from the staff, a Lady Antebellum CD from a girl I did not know, and she got a _pink_ box from me. Hey, at least hers was colorful._

_Kira got a black hair dye pack from the other girl in their room (I didn't know her name, but I was pretty sure it was Valorie or something), a blue bow from the staff (I was pretty sure they were trying to change her so her dad would want her back and they'd be rid of her), and a black hair tie from Lola. She could care less that she was required to give something to her roommates._

_Lola received a shared gift from Valorie and Kira, which was more black hair dye—they must have been trying to get her to be like them or something, even though Valorie did not have black hair like Kira did. From the staff, she got a packet of frozen broccoli ("Eating better helps you focus in school better") that she was _so_ pleased to get, and I got her a weird looking rock with the word 'best' engraved on it. The engraving was awful looking, because I had to do it myself with the blade of my sword (while no one was looking, of course, but I swear Jasmine got a glimpse of it.)_

_And lastly, I got perfume from Becca, and it smelled so terrible that I took an oath to never ever use it. I did not swear on the Styx, so I was safe if I actually had no choice but to use it. Jasmine gave me a stuffed bear toy, and it actually looked kind of cute (and that's coming from an _Ares _kid. Think about that for a second.) The staff got me a pair of binoculars for some odd reason, though I knew they might come in handy for spying on Jasmine if she was getting too curious. As long as Jasmine did not take them, anyway, they'd be of good use. And from Lola, all I received was a card._

"_Be careful with that Jasmine girl always at your side, Eve. Don't forget what I told you," was all that it said. Not even a "Merry Christmas" or "Have a good new year when it comes soon". Just a warning to keep careful around Jasmine. Something told me that Lola was really hating this girl. Of course I would be careful, I would never tell or give hints. But she had to have known that Jasmine had learned too much, seen too much of me and my camp things. She had seen the sword._

_-January 1__st__:_

_Had a New Year party today. It was kind of cool, I guess. Streamers, decorations, loads of friends in a room together celebrating, refreshments, and not to mention the ball drop._

_-January 29__th__:_

_It was Becca's fourteenth birthday today. The little group of three that was Jasmine, Becca and I celebrated quietly in our room. Becca wanted something bigger and "flashier", but she was forced to settle for a quiet little party in our room because of curfew._

_-February 12__th__:_

_Everyone just _loves _poking fun at the dyslexic. I was in the library with Lola, studying just like everyone else who was in there, when some random kid noticed Lola having troubles reading her history book._

"_What's the problem?"_

"_Don't understand what the heck this is saying," she replied, sighing and continuing to try and read. Her dyslexia was even worse than mine._

"…_Seriously? Are you that stupid?"_

_I glowered. "Shut your mouth," I told him, then continued trying to study._

"_Why should I? You're so stupid, you probably don't know what I'm saying anyways…"_

_Lola looked confused._

"…_Especially that one," he said._

_I stood up. "QUIET."_

"_SHHHHH!" almost everyone whispered._

_I kicked him in the shin and he never spoke to me again in my next month there._

_-March 4__th__:_

_Jasmine was adopted today, by a couple named Bert and Rena Hope. It was surprisingly one of the worst things I had ever gone through in my life._

_Becca and I took the news harshly. The staff said it so kindly, and Jasmine looked so thrilled to be wanted, so it was hard not to be happy, but it was just treacherous. We said our last goodbyes by the front door._

"_I'll miss you guys…I've been here a while, it's a bit hard to leave…but I'm going where I need to go. You guys will, too. I won't forget you two…the strange trio that we were…"_

_I didn't think of us as a trio as much as an awkward group that had no choice but to be stuck in the same room._

"_Bye, Becca," Jasmine said sadly, pulling her friend into a hug. "Goodbye, Eve," she said to me, squeezing me tight. And that was when it truly hit me that I probably wasn't ever going to see her again._

_Jasmine, looking as happy as she could be, went out the door with her new family, and thus began a closer friendship between me and Becca. We held on to each other tightly, upset over the loss of our friend._

_Yes, me, you just said friend._

_Becca and I clung on. She was in tears, and I was halfway there. Becca and I became closer after that. The orphanage is not the same anymore, with Jasmine gone._

_March 22__nd__:_

_It was my birthday today. Becca made her best effort to make it special._

_When I woke up in the morning, I hardly recognized the place. If everything wasn't in place and the mirror wasn't still pink, I would have thought it was a different place. The walls were painted white, the bedspread was now orange (hers was still pink, but I could live with that), and there was also a shelf (not a large one, just one small one on the wall) of books that, instead of horrifying me because of my dyslexia, almost interested me._

_Becca spread out her arms happily and showed me the room. "TADA! Happy birthday!"_

_She seemed more upbeat and excited than usual, it made me wonder if she was feeling okay (not that I would be very concerned if she wasn't.)_

"_I have a present for you," she said rhythmically. She fumbled about in a pink treasure chest-shaped trunk at the side of her bed and pulled out a small box wrapped in blue paper with about a dozen 'PARTY TIME!'s all over it._

"_What's up, Becca? Are you sure you're feeling okay—"_

"_Of course I am, silly! Open it!"_

_I slowly tore it open, a bit unsure. The scarily happy expression she was giving me seemed like it could indicate that she had planted a bomb in the box and was waiting cheerfully for me to explode._

_It turned out that I was entirely wrong. When I tore it open the entire way, I discovered a silver cell phone, still packaged. It even had a little keychain thing that you could hook onto it (even though there was nothing to hook it on _to._ I didn't know what Becca was thinking when she put that there._

_I was slightly scared. Was this girl trying to kill me? Well, maybe not, but I seriously hoped that nobody would call me and attract monsters. Like I hadn't already had a bunch of them on my case._

_I gulped. "Heh, thanks, uh, Becca…this is such a…surprise…I, uh…"_

_She smiled fiercely, evidently immensely proud of herself. "I KNEW you'd LOVE it!" she exclaimed. I winced._

_I wrapped it up again, and together we walked to breakfast._

_When we got there, I saw Lola holding up a small box, not much smaller than Becca's._

"_Happy birthday!" she said, handing me the box. I opened it and found a small brown thing that smelled like cinnamon, with a string through it. With it, unfortunately, was another note._

"_It can either be an air freshener or an ornament," she told me. She smiled, pleased, and sat down at the table next to Valorie and Kira. I sat with Becca for the first time._

_It was a quiet breakfast. A "happy birthday" from some random girl I didn't know and a painful slap on the back from the boy who had insulted Lola as he made his way to the boys table in a different hall._

_When breakfast was over, Becca and I made our way back to the room and began to study. I brought out the note that came with Lola's gift and read it._

"_Good, Jasmine is gone and out of our lives. I heard that she was adopted…thank goodness, too, because she was totally eyeing me when I was making the air freshener thingy. She was on to the both of us. It's better for us now. Anyway, be sure to trash or give back anything that Jasmine had, or Becca will be on our trail next. I'll do it if you don't get to it by tonight. I'm serious, I will break and enter and tear up everything, throw everything out the window, possibly including Becca. If she's unconscious, she'll go to the hospital and we're home free! Sincerely, your totally un-scheming friend, Lola Anne Ruman"_

_Why she signed with her middle and last name, I didn't know. But I was taken aback by what she had said._

_The letter suddenly made me angry. She was happy that Jasmine was gone? Why? Just because she was on to us didn't mean that she was the enemy. Do you think she's threatening me, me? She said she'd toss Becca out the window. Becca is the closest thing I have left to Jasmine._

_I mean, not that I really care…ok, fine, sure Becca and I brought her up as 'Jazzy' sometimes, who cares? It's an inside thing and it's not like Lola will find out._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Eve Beth Benson (aka me)_

_March 24__th__:_

_Thank GODS Becca was being tutored by one of the other girls at the orphanage at the moment. I got an Iris Message inside the room a few minutes ago._

_I was just trying to read a Greek mythology book (yes, it was Jasmine's, but I decided I wanted to take a peek, and yes, I got rid of all of her other things before Lola could hurt Becca) when I saw a thing shimmering in the corner of the room._

_I screeched, even though it was only Greg and Isabelle inside of a house I had never seen before._

"_WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE! AND HOW THE HECK DID YOU KNOW WHERE I WAS?"_

"_Barry. Satyrs have ways of tracking people, you know," said Greg._

_Barry. That satyr really knew how to find people, didn't he?_

"_Oh…so, why the heck are you doing this? You could be seen! Becca or Kira or the staff could walk in at any moment and—"_

"_Forget it, Eve!" said Isabelle. "We'll be gone soon. We just wanted to talk."_

"…'_Bout what?"_

"…_We had dreams. So did Zachary Smith. I was chained to a post and monsters were hurting me," she said._

"_Me, too!" I said._

"_And I…I was killed saving you…" Greg told me._

_I hesitated. "L-Lola had that one…"_

_It came to me for a moment. "What did Zachary dream about?"_

"_W-we don't exactly know. He refuses to tell us what he dreamt about. And he won't tell us who it is, either."_

"_You haven't figured it out yet?"_

"_No," Greg said._

_To make a lighter note, I mentioned that they had better go before I kicked their butts when I eventually got to camp with them. They both laughed halfheartedly._

"_Bye, Lov—uh, Eve," said Greg._

_Isabelle frowned at him._

"_Bye, Eve. See you at camp," Isabelle said. Then the message was disconnected._

_April 13__th__:_

_Today was not a good day. Will elaborate later if I can._

And I will elaborate, but not now. No time. Have to hide this from Quinn…

* * *

**I know the ending was confusing. I realize that you have no clue who Quinn is, unless you've read my trailer (hey, that doesn't mean that you should go read it!) But just wait. Quinn is one of the best characters that I have. :D**

**R&R appreciated, flames accepted, requests for deletion ignored.**


	4. Strangers Like These

**IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY! SQUEEEEEE! AND BY YESTERDAY I MEAN MAY 21st!**

**Anyways...**

**Sorry for the long wait, I never got the chance to keep writing, but I got a lot done today, so here it is! The title gives it away, though...oh, well. By the way, LONGEST CHAPTER EVER! 9 PAGES LONG AND 4,005 WORDS! SUCK THAT, CHAPTER 1!**

**Anyways...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. You'd better catch on by now :)**

**Claimer: I do own everything else x3 I will know whether or not you're using a character, so you may as well lay off.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Strangers Like These**

Worst day ever, if that was possible knowing that I've nearly been killed before.

It started with a bad dream. I was chained to the post, as always. I was beginning to get used to this, as, most likely, was the true victim. I was sitting there, hoping someone would come for me. They would, I knew they would…or, at least, whoever this was thought so.

I thought of random people at camp, people I didn't know. I saw Zachary, and I saw myself, a scruffy-haired boy that looked somewhat familiar, and a bunch of people who I didn't know. Not one of them was even remotely familiar, but somehow, thinking of them made me sad.

My thinking was interrupted by a boy with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes…er, eye. On his right eye, there was a pitch black eye-patch. He was wearing armor over a red T-shirt and ripped jeans. He might have looked handsome if it weren't for the scars peeking out from above and below the patch, and the fact that he was torturing me. "They're certainly coming for you, daydreamer, but they won't succeed. You'll all die, you will."

"Shut it, Drake, I've had enough of you. That's the third time you've told me that…"

"So? I like to torture you. But don't worry, if they don't come within a year, Leslie will take care of you…"

I gulped. Leslie? Who was Leslie? And why was she going to "take care of me"?

"I don't care if Leslie kills me," I told him. "It'll be better than sitting here all day."

"Will you care if Noah kills you? He's stronger than Leslie, likes to torture his victims longer…"

I gulped again. I was not liking this at all. Who were these people?

"Leave me alone, Drake."

Drake poked me in the arm with his sword, slightly reminding me of Lola, but her poking didn't hurt like a sword did. "Maybe I will after you've proven useful…"

"…Proven useful in what way?" I said, hate and disgust in my eyes.

"Information."

"…What kind of information?"

I glared at Drake. But he just smirked and said, "Oh, you know…the useful inside information that will set you free—"

"Really?"

"—but the camp would fall and everyone would die. It's your pick. Sit here for the rest of your short life or give us some information."

"I'm not telling you anything, Johnsford."

"It's O'Johnsford, not just Johnsford! Agh!"

"Yeah. I know that," I said, scowling. "I like to annoy you as much as you love to torture my poor depraved soul."

"At least you admit it. Now, I must go—oh, wait, there's Leslie. HEY, LESLIE, GET OVER HERE!"

A slender girl in her teens (as was the boy standing before me now) walked her way over, swaying from side to side as she did so. "Yes, Drake?"

"Our captive would like to meet you. Say hello, daydreamer," he said, smiling evilly.

"Hello, daydreamer," I said unenthusiastically. I sighed and looked away. Maybe there was something less evil looking over there. It was hard to look at Leslie, anyways, and know that she was evil, because of who she looked like to me.

She was a skinny girl, with semi-pale skin and curly blonde hair. She had a bit more muscle than the girl who looked like her, though, and her eyes were blue, not a reddish hazel. She wore a black tank top and a camouflage jacket, which matched her camo pants and camo hat a bit strangely, I might add. I was sensing a theme going on over here. But other than these few differences, this girl looked eerily like my best friend, Lola Ruman.

Leslie was holding a large dagger, and had begun to look at it with cruelty in her eyes. Then I could have sworn I saw a glint of red in her eye, and it seemed that she had gained an idea. She began to cut little slits in my skin. I screamed, but Leslie and Drake were grinning ear-to-ear.

I couldn't push her away, seeing as my hands and feet were tied behind me, an uncomfortable position in which I was getting used to. How I had not died yet, I was unaware of, because all they fed me each day was a bit of sinew from their meals, and I hardly even ate it. The water I drank was only a few drops in the morning when Drake or someone or something would splash it at me to wake me up. No doubt the new wakeup call would be Leslie cutting away at my skin some more.

It was hours later. Leslie had given up on me because she couldn't get a good scream out of me anymore and was now sitting in a chair close by. Drake was still taunting me, though, which was more to endure than Leslie's dagger.

"He's comin'…not gonna work, though. They'll die trying to save you. And once they're gone, we can finally get rid of you."

"So now I'm the pest, huh?"

"Yep," he said coolly.

"Prat…" I muttered under my breath. Luckily, he didn't seem to hear me calling him a stupid person in British-English.

A couple more hours passed. Drake had fallen asleep, and now it was Leslie's turn to talk to me.

"Don't worry. Your boyfriend is coming, sweetie," she said sickeningly. "But both of you will die."

Boyfriend? Either this girl had a boyfriend or it truly was supposed to be me and they assumed that Greg was my boyfriend or something (I shivered at the thought.)

"Just shut up, alright? They're either coming and living or not coming and still living. For their sakes I hope they don't come…" I looked out at the hills for no particular reason. Maybe Zachary would come back. He seemed to be the only one making a big, brave attempt to save me and he had said he'd come back. I trusted his word.

"Fine, fine…but don't be sad when they come, princess."

My original attacker was now talking in his sleep. He muttered something about a daughter of Ares, which sent my nerves up a wall. Was he dreaming about me or something?

But Leslie stretched over to him and smiled. "Dreaming about me again?"

My mental jaw dropped. So this girl was my half-sister…wonderful.

"Leslie…" he continued, still unaware that she was right in front of his face. Leslie shook him and he shouted. "Get up, Drake," she barked. "We have orders, you know, we can't sit here all day."

_Thank gods, _I thought. _They're leaving._

Leslie smacked my cheek before leaving, and I watched, horrified, as Leslie and Drake walked away. But they seemed to be exactly side-by-side, there was hardly any space between them. They held their evil hands and eventually, they began to embrace a bit more and began to kiss, and I looked away. How could there possibly be love in such a place?

I woke up soon after that, the image of Drake and Leslie kissing and so closely wrapped around each other stuck in my head. It disgusted me that evil might actually know _love._ Evil people or things never knew love, or at least that I knew of, especially in literature. I remembered there being a girl way back when at Symphony Elementary who had been reading the _Harry Potter_ books, and she wouldn't stop droning on to everyone how stupid Voldemort was and how he didn't know what love meant. It had gotten really annoying, and I had soon trained my ears to drown it out with the sounds of nothing.

Lola was sitting on the bed, looking sad. Her face was not wet from tears, thank goodness, but I could see the red in her eyes. Well, her eyes were partially red in general, but you know what I'm saying. That she had _been_ crying.

"Ms. Stupidface would like to talk to you…" she said glumly, and I knew that she meant Ms. Cunningham. She had come over to the Orphanage soon after our departing from the school grounds, and we once again began to call her names, as we had on the day we left.

"Why?" I said, alarmed. If Ms. Cunningham wanted to see me, what was going on? Was Lola in trouble, and she needed someone else to talk to? Someone who knew her well?

"I-I can't tell you," she murmured.

"Can't or won't?"

She glared the slightest. "Can't, but in the won't kind of way. I just can't say it, Eve…just go…"

I took her "just go" as "move it or I'll punch you," so I left fairly quickly.

I went past the dining hall and into the front office. What I saw worried me. Ms. Cunningham was with…a pair of adults. Now I knew why Lola was crying. Now we _really_ had the reason to call her Ms. Stupidface.

When I saw them, I faltered and stepped back a bit.

"Um…hi," was my intelligent response.

The woman waved and smiled, but the man seemed hooked into an unfortunate conversation with Ms. Stupidface. The stupid woman motioned for me to go into the nurse's office, right next to the office I was in now. I hurried in there and began to eavesdrop.

"—good, caring girl. She sounds just about right," said the man.

He talked about me as if I were a dog, which made me mad.

"Dear, we have to keep Quinn in mind," said his wife. I didn't know who Quinn was and I didn't give a darn either. Ms. Stupidface was trying to get me adopted.

"I already told him that whoever we came out of here with, if we got out of here with someone, that he'd have to live with them no matter how much they disliked each other. And he agreed."

"You got his word?" she asked, sounding very surprised.

"Er, no, I kind of got the puppy-dog pout and a reluctant 'okay, fine, dad', but hey, I got something out of him!"

"Oh, Theo…"

Ms. Stupidface began to talk again. "Her files say she's kind, caring, hard-working, smart, willing to do any chore—"

I stopped listening right there. 'Willing to do any chore?' Now she was just trying to get rid of me.

The man called Theo continued to talk with the woman I despised almost as much as I despised Leslie. I didn't bother trying to listen anymore. It was clear that it wouldn't matter anyway. These people were talking too excitedly, and Ms. Cunningham had the most evil grin on her face.

"Olivia, I'm already told you, Quinn won't mind—"

"He will!"

"I know I said chances were more likely he'd get a brother but—"

"THEO!"

"Calm down, Olivia, I didn't promise him!"

"But STILL! You told him chances were _likely_-"

Ms. Stupidface stopped them from conversing any longer.

"Now, now, calm down…so, I take it that you are adopting her? Or have you changed your minds?"

The man's face went pale and he looked at the woman next to him. "Olivia?"

"Well…yes. The first one."

My heart sank. I would be leaving Lola, Becca, right now I even cared that I was leaving Kira.

"Eve," crooned Ms. Stupidface, "come out here."

I reluctantly walked out of the nurse's office and shakily walked into the main office. "Er, hello…"

The woman smiled encouragingly, and so did the man. I knew I'd have to get used to them. They were taking me away.

"I am Olivia, this is Theo…we just need to talk to you."

I nodded, and Ms. Stupidface went to go sort out files or something of the sort. I was alone with these people now, and I would never see my friends again. I couldn't go off to camp with these people hanging about. My newly discovered life would officially be put to an end. After all that I had been through? After each and every one of us risking our lives for something we didn't even care about? Lola and I were completely new to it, we didn't deserve that so quickly. I didn't do that for nothing. There had to have been a reason that the Cyclops had chased us, that Barry had taken us away…surely I was not meant to be confined to a house forever, never go to camp again?

They talked to me for a while, explaining things and asking me questions that I answered bitterly. I couldn't take this. When would I be free?

If things went well, they would decide they didn't like me. If things in my life were to fall, I'd be adopted.

It turned out that, apparently, my life was supposed to fall apart.

I went back up to my room, crying. When I finally reached my door, I opened it up to find Lola and Becca sobbing into each other's laps. This was almost as if reliving what Becca and I had done the night that Jasmine had left, and I did not want to relive that.

"I…I don't know what…what to say…"

"It's okay, Eve…" said Becca, tears in her eyes. She wiped them away. "You didn't get a say in whether or not you got adopted…they must have figured all of us just want to leave this place."

I shrugged.

Lola finally found her voice. "I really shouldn't tell Kira about this…she'll be so jealous…but I will anyway." She smirked.

That was my Lola. She'd been acting a bit strange since we'd gotten here.

I packed all of my things half-heartedly.

I didn't know why Becca and Lola were sticking around. They weren't even doing anything anyways, and why torture themselves by watching me leave? It was pointless and rather stupid of them. But then again, I'd be doing the same had the situation been reversed.

There was a soft rap on the door, and I flinched. Becca began sobbing all over again. "Eve, are you ready?" said the woman's voice. A tear rolled down my cheek—and to think I had wanted to leave this place…It might have been lonely, and upsetting watching people come and go, but it would be better than never seeing Lola or Greg or Kyle or even Becca again…but then again, there was drachma to be considered, and those led to Iris-messages…but I still didn't want to leave. And then I remembered how Greg and I chased each other across the beach, how my friends had saved me from the collapsing cave, how Lola and I had sat in the attic talking things over, how I had jumped off of the fiery climbing wall and gracefully landed on the back of my now former Pegasus, Jet, and flew off, and several more drops of water emerged from my eyes. I wouldn't experience it again. I felt a hand touch my back. Hoping it was Lola or Becca, I whirred around, only to see the woman, with a deep look of sympathy in her hazel eyes. My only problem with the sympathy was that I knew she could never really sympathize. She would never know how this felt.

"Eve, sweetie, are you ready to leave?" she asked again. I couldn't take the soft tone in her voice. It was mind-boggling.

"N-," I began, but stopped short. I couldn't say that I wasn't leaving. No doubt they'd done the paperwork already, I couldn't go against it. "I…Almost…"

And so I reluctantly packed the rest of my things and walked with the couple to the front office. Lola and Becca followed. By the front door, we said our final goodbyes. I wasn't having any of it…I wouldn't see Lola again. I wasn't sure I exactly minded never seeing Becca again, but I still couldn't leave. Becca would be alone in that room. It was bad enough when Jasmine had left, but now with me leaving, Becca would be broken.

It was almost like reliving Jasmine's goodbye. "Bye Lola," I murmured, though muffled underneath the sound of crying. She grabbed me fiercely and we hugged. This would be like the Underworld, leaving her. Dark, cold, not empty but certainly not happy.

The hug lasted almost three whole minutes. We were both sobbing, and Becca was doing the same. We eventually broke, and I said, "Bye Becca," and Becca made to grab me as well, but I stopped her and we had an awkward handshake.

"I don't want to leave you guys…"

"Don't worry, Eve," said Lola, though she was one to talk about worrying. She'd been doing it for over half of her life. "I'll watch over old Rebecca over here."

Becca winced at her full name being said, just as I did whenever my middle name was mentioned. I was finally noticing some similarities between us, though I would no longer be able to put them to use.

"I'm more worried about you, to be honest," I joked. Lola laughed a bit, but that was it. We had a group hug, and then I left them forever.

The moment I walked out those doors, I regretted it. I walked silently to the car with the man and the woman. I couldn't take this.

The car was a silver Honda Civic, and I wouldn't know that had there not been a logo on the car. I reluctantly opened the back door and got in. The woman followed in after me. The man got in the passengers' seat, and there was an adolescent boy in the front seat, who I had to guess was Quinn.

As it turned out, I was quite right.

"I thought you said I'd be getting me a brother," he muttered.

"I know we did, Quinn, but—"

"Yeah, I know, Mom…she had good records. We've gone over it."

"Hey, don't talk like that, young man," ordered the man.

"Yes, _Theo…_"

He must be really mad to be calling his father by first name. Theo glared at him and said, "Olivia, make him be quiet."

"Be quiet, Quinn," ordered Olivia.

He obeyed.

Along the way, they began to ask me about myself.

"Do you know what happened to your parents, sweetie?" asked Olivia. This was an extremely touchy subject for me, and I answered reluctantly. "My…my mom's dead…" I whispered. The woman looked sad. "And your father?"

"Ares," I said. Then I realized what I'd said.

"What?" Theo asked.

"I said, 'Er, he's gone'," I improvised. Thankfully, they bought it, all except for Quinn, who seemed very uneasy about this, slightly throwing off his driving.

"For goodness' sake, Quinn, you're nineteen, you're supposed to drive better than that!" cried the woman next to me. Quinn began to focus again and put what I'd said behind him.

I was disliking this boy already, the way I had disliked Jasmine in almost a heartbeat. He was on to me, too.

After a long time of awkward conversation and repeated scolding towards Quinn, we reached the house. It was a one story, the color of white. There were stairs leading to the front door, and a large bronze van parked out front. The place looked perfectly friendly, and I trusted these people, but I didn't like it at all.

After a couple more minutes of talking to me about random things, though I really couldn't care less whether or not their Uncle Skandar was an equestrian, I forced my suitcases onto Quinn and strode into the house after Theo. I swore right there that I would never go easy on Quinn as long as I lived in that house.

I entered, and I saw a large living room with white carpet flooring, a flat-screen TV, a big purple beanbag sitting by it, and squeezed into a small corner behind the beanbag chair, was a tall door. How could they fit a room into the side of the house like that?

Theo motioned me down a short hallway, two doors on each side. He pointed to the first one on the right side. "This is Olivia and I's room," he said, then pointed to the one next to it, "and this is my office. I work from home." Then he pointed to the first one to the left. "This is a sort of playroom, I suppose, and this," he pointed to the one next to that, "is all yours."

I faltered. "Where does Quinn sleep?"

He pointed to the door in the living room behind the beanbag.

I didn't pity him. I envied him. To have a room separated from these people? I'd swap anything for that.

He motioned for me to go into my room and get unpacked as soon as Quinn came with the bags, but instead I continued down the hall. There was the kitchen space behind a large island, and then a table and chair set-up in the main part of the room. There were many trinkets placed in different places, along with a small TV set up near the table. There were glass doors leading to the backyard, and then I saw a medium-sized white-and-brown creature with a torn ear and scratches all over it. I gulped.

"Er, sir, just wondering, do you happen to have a dog?" I asked fearfully. This animal looked an awful lot like a small dog.

"No, Eve, we don't, but we do have a cat. He's right out there. His name's Scratch, as you can see why."

"How'd that happen?"

"Got in a fight with the next door neighbor's dog, Roscoe. Now Scratch is blind in one eye, has an ear and a half, and scratches all over, hence his name."

I opened the door and let the cat in. It didn't look very handsome, but Theo seemed to adore the thing, so I decided to try and 'befriend' it.

The rest of the day, I endured insults from Quinn and his parents shouting at him to shut his mouth unless he wanted to be grounded for a month, to which Quinn instantly obeyed. Quinn reminded me of a more snotty version of Lola, and a calmer version of Rosa, which tore me completely. He acted like two people, one that was awesome, and one that was an absolute hag that I never wanted to see again. Therefore, I was struggling with how to treat him, but I had already promised myself that I wouldn't go easy on him, even if he eventually softened on me. This would be a forever rivalry.

I would keep going forever, until he finally cracked.

And I would make him.

I went to sleep in my new room that night, still horrorstruck. This had actually happened. I was gone, away from my friends, forever. I had met too many people in one day for my head and heart to bear. There were just too many. I had the misfortune of meeting Drake O'Johnsford in a dream, where he had tortured me. I had met a girl named Leslie, who was apparently supposed to be my half-sister. Well, I wasn't going to show her any sisterly love any time soon. And then there were Olivia and Theo…I had mixed feelings about my new step-parents at the moment. I was happy, because they had liked me enough to want to adopt me, but I hated them all at once, because they had taken me away from the people I loved. And Quinn…Quinn was a different case. I didn't hate him like I hated the foul demigods Drake and Leslie, but I didn't like him like I liked his parents. And Scratch…well, that was for me to find out. Scratch was only a cat, so I wasn't going to say that I had met him. We would see whether I liked him or not. But I knew one thing: this was going to be like the Underworld, as I had predicted. Dark. Cold. Not empty, not happy. Painful, that was the word.

* * *

**DON'TCHA JUST LOVE QUINN? :DD He's my favorite character in the entire series. You'll find out why, eventually.**

**Review, flame, all the same to me. As long as you read it.**

**By the way, there's something I want you to do for me. Since I'm officially in love with Harry Potter, I've listened to a band called Ministry of Magic. They are a completely Harry Potter-based band, with four albums and 2 EPs, and they rock to no end. So, I need you to listen to them for me. 'Kay? Thanks.**


	5. The Ultimate Torture

**Sorry it's sort of short. Had no more to say.**

**Please put up with Quinn for me. Pweeeeeeez.**

**Ok, keep your guesses on who the girl that's captured is, because it'll finally be revealed.**

**Disclaimer, blah blah blah, you get it. I own nothing except my ideas. Don't be small, 4'6" brats who steal ideas but for some reason occasionally show a strange crush-like attitude xD *cough*Noah*cough* Remember him? Yeah. The thief. We got our yearbooks today and when he signed mine he stuck his number under his name 03e All I did was say "P.S. THEIF" under _my_ name on his yearbook XD (By the way, that's nobody you'd know) Oh, by the way, my revenge on the midget will be shown below :3 I'm introducing the mock-Noah that I will make just as horrible. And then I shall show to Noah what he gets BC DIE, NOAH, DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE- oh, you're still here. Hello.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**The Ultimate Torture**

"WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS THIS PLACE SHE'S HIDING AT?" he demanded.

I was crying. "I don't…I don't know…"

"LIAR!" Drake shouted. His sword was at my neck. "WHERE IS SHE?"

"Drake, I…I don't know…I don't know where she is…"

"QUIT LYING, YOU RIDICULOUS EXCUSE FOR A DEMIGOD! WHERE IS SHE HIDING?" he screamed, shoving his sword ever closer to my throat.

"I…" I looked down at my neck. If I didn't tell him now, he'd kill me before that year was over, before Leslie or Noah could beat him to it. He'd kill me without looking back.

I gave him the first address I could think of.

He walked away, sword in hand.

I sighed with relief. The people in that house could take him, I knew it. They were strong. And better yet, Drake was gone.

And just when I had started getting happy, Leslie and a shorter, redheaded dude came along. The torture had once again begun.

"Mornin', Leslie…" I murmured.

"Where's Drake?" she demanded.

"Left to find her," I said. She would know who I meant.

She ran off to find him, but the boy stayed behind.

"'Ello," he said jokingly.

"Hello," I returned.

"Is tha weetle demigod twapped?" he said.

"Yes, 'tha weetle demigod' _is_ trapped, thank you very much. And I want out."

"Aw, well, I suppose I…I'll talk to Drake, 'kay?"

"You will?"

"Nope!"

I rolled my eyes. "You're so mature."

"Thank you."

"You're Noah, I take it?"

"That would be me."

I scoffed. "No wonder I don't like you. Drake _told_ me about _you_."

Noah smiled. "Ah. Told you how I might kill ya sometime soon?"

I nodded.

"Well, I could start now, you know…" He picked up a scythe off the ground. "'E tell ya I like to torture people slowly? Bet 'e did, 'uh?"

I nodded. That scythe wasn't giving me a good impression. I'd had experience with that, many dreams ago—

"Heh, smart of 'im. Warn you beforehand."

He raised the scythe. Now would have been a GREAT time to have magical powers and create a force field…

But it wasn't meant to be that way, clearly.

He hit my arm with a big _THWACK_.

I screamed with pain, and I woke up…to the same screaming still going on.

I got out of bed and walked out to the living room. Quinn was panting, holding his door closed, screaming like a little girl.

"WHAT-IS-YOUR-_PROBLEM?_"

"A bee," he muttered.

"…A _bee?"_

"Yes."

"You screamed… because of a _bee?_"

"Yep."

"You woke me up…because of a BEE."

"I'm highly allergic!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake…" I muttered, walked over to his door and shoving him away. I opened it and the bee flew out and landed on the lamp on the table that held the large flat-screen TV. Quinn flinched and made a shrieking noise.

I cupped it up in my hands and let it outside. "And stay there, buggy, because if he screams again, he won't be the only one smacked." I slammed the door.

Quinn glared at me. "How did you do that?"

I gave him a smug grin. "I did it because I'm not afraid of harmless little insects."

"That thing's not harmless, IT COULD'VE STUNG ME! I could be swelling up right now, I could be sick—"

"Oh, yes, please go on, Quinn. I'd love to hear all about the many things that a bee can do to you."

He glared still. I glared back.

"If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go back to bed," I said stubbornly.

"No point in it. It's 5:26 PM. You wake up way too late, Eve," said Quinn.

"What were you doing, then?"

"…Listening to music?"

"Uh huh. Yup. Sure. And what was it you were _really_ doing?"

He furrowed a brow. "How do you know that's not what I was doing?"

I glared at him. "I can tell by your tone. I know you're lying."

"…Fine. I give up. I was writing."

I snorted. "You write poetry?"

"Not _poetry_, Benson, a story. I'm on chapter fourty-three, FYI."

"Chapter…_fourty-three?_"

I was shocked. He sounded like the type to be interested in video games, rap music, that stupid stuff. The stuff that Kyle would probably like. But a writer? Chapter _fourty-three?_ This was unexpected.

"Yep. Epic adventure story. Hoping for one-hundred chapters someday. Maybe then it'll be published, and we'll have enough money that maybe dad will stop wasting his time on painting. He hardly ever gets money out of it, it's pointless."

"Hang on."

He mock-held on to his doorknob dramatically.

"Not like that, you idiot."

Quinn grinned widely, but let go anyway.

"How do you know my last name, Quinn?"

"I'm a Tanner, Eve. And we in the Tanner family have sneaky and conniving ways of seeing the things we want to see."

"You sound evil."

"Thanks."

…This was awkward.

"So, how do you know my last name, then?"

"Picked the lock of Mom and Dad's room last night. Deep sleepers, see, and I took the adoption forms and looked. Had to know everything so I could get to you, didn't I?"

"…You're as sneaky and conniving as you said, Quinn."

"Thanks. Again."

"So you feel so important that you feel you must break into your parents' bedroom and steal some paper? Exciting." I wasn't liking this. I sounded exactly like Rosa. I could almost hear her saying, "_So, you're the child of _dirt? _Special."_

"HEY! You be quiet, Benson."

Olivia burst into the room. "What is all this racket? _Honestly._"

"Eve insulted me."

"Because he's being ridiculous."

"Only because you are."

"Oh, _please,_" I muttered.

"At least I wasn't stuck in an orphanage for half a year without somebody coming. At least I'm doing something worthwhile. I'm writing a big old book."

"Oh, yes, because saving the world isn't worthwhile."

"Saving the world?"

"Yeah, I've taken part in that."

"You're delusional."

"And you're a freak, Quinn."

"So are you!"

Olivia glared at her nineteen year old son. "Don't be so rude, Quinn."

"I'll give it up if she does."

"Mind your attitude."

"That's hard for me to do."

"Try, Quinn."

"Yeah, Quinn. Try," I sneered.

He glared at me with a look of utmost contempt in his eyes. "Leave me alone."

"You haven't left me alone, why should I?"

"I said_, leave me alone._"

He glowered at me, and I backed off that time. I really didn't like this. Quinn was getting too serious.

"What are you on about, anyway, Quinn? This is sibling rivalry, not…sworn enemies."

"Check back with me on that later." He went into his room, a creepy expression on his face.

"What's his problem, Olivia?"

"…I don't know."

The rest of my couple of months there are a blur to me. All I care about is my demigod life, and that's what I'm going to tell you about. I won't torture you with Essence of Quinn. You don't need to know about school, either. Who cares that six is the square-root of thirty-six?

I continued to have dreams. They always had the same basic idea: torture. Chains. Posts. Evil demigods. You know, that pleasant stuff.

One time I had overheard Drake talking to a monster about evil plans. Something about booby traps and false trails. ("Of course, they'll think they have to go that way, but we'll make the trail go the other way…")

Another time, Leslie was taunting me still. She seemed to love doing that, for she did it the next several dreams. Way to go, Leslie, way to go…

But the last one in particular scared me.

Of course, I was tied up. That was obvious, considering I'd been that way the whole time. The new thing was that Drake took his eye-patch off later on.

He was walking around my stump that I was stuck to. His eye-patch was still on at this point, but he still looked menacing. Monsters were assembled in a corner. Drake was continually taunting me, but in a much more painful way than his usual, irritating way.

"The time is getting closer. They're coming, McKenna Smith. They're coming."

So this was who they had. McKenna Smith. No wonder Zachary, her older-by-one-day twin brother, had been so keen on saving me…er, her…er…yeah.

"And they're leaving this place alive," I spat. "Whether you like it or not."

"I don't like it."

"Good, that was my point."

"You're snarky, you are. Weren't like this in the beginning. You were more polite. Where'd your manners go, Smith?"

"I'd like to know where yours went, Johnsford."

"We've been through this," he said. He looked as though he were going to re-explain something very difficult and complicated, but then he said, "I've never had them!"

"I can tell."

"Well, I have something that might get rid of that snark."

"Try me."

"When we got to the address you gave me, we did not find the girl but a married couple. Conveniently, they turned out to be your parents. How do you feel about that?"

I wasn't fazed. They were strong.

Noticing the scowling expression on my face instead of a horrorstruck one, he said, "No? Well, maybe you'll react more to this—"

Drake leaned forward. "We killed them."

And he was right. Now I was fazed…they couldn't be gone…I myself never personally knew them, of course, but McKenna inevitably did. And I felt bad for her. How could Drake be so cruel? It was unfair. It was unjust. What was his problem?

I wouldn't have been surprised if he were the reason for my mother's death, had I not already known that the ones responsible for that were a bunch of hellhounds and _empousai_.

I hoped I could kill him one day. And if I didn't get to, Greg or Kyle or Lola should. I wouldn't even care if Rosa did it. I'd had enough of Drake over these past many months.

Drake O'Johnsford was going down. One way…or another.

He smiled at me. I glared right back at him.

"You foul thing," I spat. "How could you? How would you feel if I murdered your father and mother? How?"

He gave me a toothy grin. "You wouldn't be able to do that anyway, Smith. I took care of that ages ago."

I gasped. He had murdered his own family and didn't even feel sorry about it.

"You have a problem, Drake. You don't have any mercy. Or remorse. You just kill people willy-nilly, like you're above the rules, as though you're the king of the world, as if you're not a complete—"

I was actually glad that he stopped McKenna from continuing. I had a bad feeling about the next word she was about to say.

Drake had slapped her, well, me, er…_us._ He had slapped _us._ He then pulled down his eye-patch to reveal an eye covered in scratches. He slightly reminded me of Scar from 'The Lion King', only he had three of them. He also had a bad black eye, as though someone had hit him. His actual eyeball looked like it was slightly rotting, like a flower that wasn't getting enough sun. Only slightly was it doing so, but it was still ugly nevertheless.

"Know why I wear this?" he asked, gesturing to the eye-patch.

"To cover up your disgusting face?" I suggested. Hey, it was a fair guess.

He snarled at me. "Leslie reckons my face is just fine."

"That's because she's just as bonkers as you…"

He kicked me in the stomach for that.

"Tell me another reason why I wear this thing _other than to cover up my scars_."

I was at a loss.

"It's in tribute to Ethan Nakamura. Poor fellow died two years ago. He was a son of Nemesis. He and I were somewhat close. But despite how we got along, it's a tribute to him."

"Yep. That's nice. I really _don't care_. Thanks anyways."

I received another blow to the stomach.

"May I remind you of something?"

"What?" I groaned.

"When you got here, you promised to not insult us this thoroughly unless you decided your life was no longer worth it."

"I still have something to live for, you know…they're coming, I know they are…"

"I know, too. But I still know things that you don't, you foolish little girl."

"Little girl? I'm, what, a year younger than you?"

"Still."

"Ugh…can you please just…just be quiet…"

Luckily, even he was at least kind enough to do that for me.

But who would be coming? Zachary, of course. He'd demand to go even if he wasn't invited on the quest. Probably the boy that McKenna had been with at the end of the summer last year; I couldn't see why he wouldn't demand of it, either. If they could, Kyle and Greg would probably be there. If, by chance, I was freed from this place and Lola was at Camp, too, we'd be going. Despite the fact that we'd faced quite enough action last summer, I couldn't see why we wouldn't force ourselves on Chiron. Believe it or not, Lola and I had discussed this—we had somewhat liked the action, despite the fact that we'd nearly been killed. The only thing that would turn Lola off was the chance that an Aetheopian drakon would come, and then she'd be scared witless. But other than that, I knew Lola: she loved danger. Blood, no problem. Death, okay, that would be a problem for her, but other than that and the aforementioned monster, she'd be dying to go. And myself, well, I couldn't help but help. I wouldn't be in it for the danger, like Lola, or for the thrill, like Kyle would. I'd do it for McKenna, as Greg and Zachary and the boy would do. As alike as I was to Lola, we were completely different, if that makes any sense.

The dream blurred, and suddenly the grounds of the enemies disappeared in a flash. In it's place stood Isabelle Slate, my Greek Speak teacher and daughter of Morpheus. She looked distressed.

"I've tried to control your dreams before, and it's worked, but I'm not doing anything this time, I swear. I'm scared, too, Eve. But I think you've seen enough of this. I'll be changing your dreams for as long as I can, okay? If I'm lucky I'll be able to change Lola's and Greg's too. Kyle hasn't had any that he's told us of, but just in case, I'll try him as well. I won't bother to help Zachary. I suggested it to him and he sort of screamed at me, so clearly what he's seeing is disturbing, but he told me not to do anything about it, so I won't. I just wish I could change mine as easily…I'm seeing what you're seeing. Lola and Greg are seeing the same thing, but not the same as us. Zachary still won't tell us, so we just have to hope he's okay. Er, well, bye, Eve," she said.

She snapped, and then she was gone.

And with that, I woke up.

It was strange. I knew Isabelle, being a child of Morpheus, the god of dreams, was able to mess with dreams, but to know that she'd controlled them before? That was odd. What if she…no, she couldn't have. She'd never have been able to see all that _to_ show me…but it was curious. _Had _Isabelle shown me Rosa's past? If so, why?

But all in all, it was reassuring that she'd be helping us be rid of all this terror. But what had Lola and Greg said they'd seen? I couldn't remember. But none of this sounded good. And what had Zachary seen? What had he seen that was so traumatizing that he had screamed at an innocent girl?

What had Zachary Smith seen that had scared him so?

While my question never got answered by my boggled mind, I heard a banging on the door and practically jumped out of bed it was so loud. The others had obviously heard it, because there was the sound of closing doors and suspiciously quiet walking.

I myself got out of bed and slowly walked out. And what I saw at the open door shocked me.

It was Kyle and Lola.

"Eve? Is that you?"

I didn't answer. I ran up to them and hugged them I was so happy.

They were saving me.

"Yeah, Kyle, something tells me that's her," Lola said in a muffled voice, for I was practically squishing her.

"Oh, sorry, I—"

I let go just as Lola said, "Don't be."

"I'll, uh, be right back," I told my family. And with that I went out the door with my friends.

"I can't believe you guys found me!" I said as we walked down the steps.

"Neither can we," said Kyle.

"But how-?"

They both smiled. "Barry," they said in unison.

* * *

**And the fun begins.**

**R, R, F, all the same to me.**


	6. Of Freedom And Surprises And Horror

**Oh my gosh, I'm SO SORRY that I took so long. I had this long trip to Utah and I've simply been preoccupied. I got most of this entire chapter done just tonight, though, so it looks like I've made some progress. The chapter even ended up long xD Yay for me.**

**So, I've decided that I cannot kill off Noah. My dad told me that if I do that, and someone I know reads it, they'll think that I really do want to kill him, and that's not good (because, obviously, I don't /really/ want him dead xD ) So instead, I'll make him revert to the good side...after he gets a load of pain and some sense.**

**Again, sorry I told so long. But thanks for waiting.**

**Yeah, yeah, disclaimer, copyright, blah blah. I'm too tired tonight, please don't make me do it.**

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**Chapter 6**

**Of Freedom and Surprises (And A Little Bit Of Horror)**

"Barry? The satyr that found Lola and me?"

Kyle nodded. "Yep. Found him in the forest at Camp. Asked him if he could help me find you guys. Satyrs have really good tracking skills. And then he found you guys and I came straight over. Grabbed Lola first. She was closest."

"What made you want to come for us?" I was curious.

He sighed. "Kristen called the house. At first I thought she was trying to attract monsters to me, because of the phone thing, but then she said it was urgent, that you needed to be at Camp."

"You trusted her?"

"…After a little persuasion from myself, I did it. Of course I didn't trust her at first. I'd have to be stupid."

I tried not to laugh.

"Oh, Eve, I have something for you…"

Kyle rummaged around in his pocket, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Eventually, he pulled out a miniature lyre collectable.

I scowled. "Ha, ha, very funny," I said, but I took it anyways. "Be right back," I told them. I re-entered the house and went to my room. I placed the replica on my shelf and left.

"I have to do something real quick. Bye," I said, and went outside again.

"Ok, are we going?"

Lola nodded. "C'mon."

Kyle owned a light brown station wagon, and it was pretty rusty. I wasn't sure I trusted the car or Kyle enough to drive us to Camp safely, but I had no other choice if I wanted to escape from Azka— erhem, the house. Kyle passed me the keys.

"Um, Kyle? Still fifteen over here."

I tossed it back at him.

"So am I, but I've been driving this thing around."

I raised a brow. "You can't drive until you're sixteen."

"You can if you break the law."

I smacked my forehead with my hand and shook my head, palm still on face. "You're hopeless, Kyle."

"Thank you."

He then look at Lola and raised the keys. "Up for it?"

"I'm still _fourteen, _Kyle! My birthday isn't until August 1st!"

"Fine then, if I'm the only one here willing to get put in a holding cell, so be it." He went to the front seat.

Lola and I stood there. Was Kyle seriously as stupid as we thought?

"What are you waiting for? Afraid of being arrested?"

Yes, he was as stupid as we thought. Worse than he had been last year, in fact. Yet seemingly, he was being brave, and that was something we hadn't seen from him before, except for when he chased the monsters-in-disguise that one time on our quest…but then again, that had led to the cave of monsters where we could have potentially died, so maybe I shouldn't count that as being brave. That was being a stupid lunatic. I could still vividly remember Kyle running, flailing his arms, shouting, "HEY, get BACK here with OUR bikes!", "Yeah, be feared! Now GIVE US THE DARNED BIKES!", and me telling him that it was a trick. That may have been his worst moment, besides the odd comment about 'hubby darts' and his telling a bad woman called Hylla our full names when we could have been in serious danger, which we were. 'Fredrick' was darn lucky that I covered it up easily.

"Yes, yes we are," Lola snapped. Once again, I sided with her.

"Do you want to get to Camp? Kristen said it was urgent."

"I'm not trusting ANYTHING that whackadoodle said!"

"She's not _entirely _crazy…she's just an extremely violent, rampaging madman."

Lola sniggered. "Sure, that's all."

"You _know_ she's not _just_ an extremely violent, rampaging madman…she's also a super mega awesome ninja with a thirst for human blood," I said.

Kyle smiled. "Let's just go."

And so we did.

Kyle was driving, Lola got shotgun _again_, and I was in the back again. At least this time, I wasn't squished between two boys. I'd have to murder someone before I did that for a third time.

It was an awkward drive. Lola tried to get me to talk more than I was, Kyle was trying to talk to Lola, and I was trying to ignore him. Unfortunately, that was hard to do, mainly because of this horrifying prospect: let's say Lola mentioned something that Kyle had misheard, but he misheard it again and thought she'd said what we'd meant to say the first time this happened. Aka, Kyle was an idiot. But wait…didn't we already learn this?

"Kyle, does 'hubby darts' sound familiar to you?" Lola asked.

"Nope. What about a chubby part? Is that a fat joke!" It was aggravating, for we had said 'chubby part' originally, when we were stuck in the cave and Kyle and Lola were insulting each other.

"Ugh," she murmured.

After a while, I muttered, "Are we there yet?"

"No," said Lola.

"…Are we there yet?"

"No," said Kyle.

"…Are we there _now?_" asked Lola, who was slowly beginning to become as impatient as me. Impatience wasn't hard for ADHD kids.

"No, we aren't there yet!" said Kyle again, growing annoyed. Seemed like it was opposite day.

After a half hour, Lola and I both said, "Please tell me we're there now." We slowed down as we realized we were saying the same thing. It was a slightly awkward/creepy/awkward/very weird moment.

Kyle laughed this time. "YES, we're THERE, okay?"

And it was true—I could see Half-Blood Hill looming before us. Thalia's Pine, the archway, the tippy top of the Big House…it was all there. Every last nook and cranny.

Like the first time I came to Camp, I practically jumped out of the car and praised the ground. I was pretty sure that I saw a dent in the hard ground from the last time I took this action…whoops.

Lola was looking at me as though I were a madman. "Um…are you okay?"

"Better," I replied, getting up. "May have seriously hurt my chest while hitting the ground, but other than that, I'm just _dandy._" She liked my sarcasm.

Kyle got out of the car and was already making his way down.

"Kyle, you're forgetting something!"

"What, did I leave the lights on?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Lock the car, genius."

"Oh. Right."

"Ready to see Camp again?" Lola asked.

"Hades yeah," I said.

And we went past the archway.

Now I could see more of the camp: the rock-wall/lava pit of death, the cabins (including mine), the forest, everything. We went farther in, absorbing it all. We were actually back.

"I _KNEW_ IT, EVE!" shouted a familiar voice.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"I have a funny feeling we're about to find out. Look," Lola grumbled.

And there was _Jasmine_, running up to us.

"Jasmine?"

"You betcha! I knew it, Eve, I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT!"

"Whoa, calm down before you wet yourself with excitement, kid," Lola said.

"Sorry," she muttered. "How's Becca?"

"She's, er, fine? I dunno, I left a while ago. Lola? You left this morning. You tell her how the heck Becca is."

"Eh. I don't talk to her much. She doesn't talk to me much. I don't know, and I couldn't exactly care less. Sorry."

"Oooh, I'll have to visit some time…" said Jasmine, feeling guilty that she'd left. "Anyways, as I was saying…I KNEW IT!"

"Yeah, we get that you knew it. But how?"

"The sword…something about Kronos…it all added up once I read those Greek books. I just couldn't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Couldn't be positive that it was just coincidence."

"I thought you said that you _knew_ it, not that you thought so," Lola countered.

"Ok, fine. Got me."

I heard a scream, followed by some more. Then I heard maniacal laughter, and I figured out exactly why they were screaming. I didn't blame them.

I turned to see Kristen putting jinxes on cabins, running around like crazy with pipe bombs and normal bombs and every other kind of bomb. I could see that someone's hair was unnaturally yellow, and there was another person who now had no hair at all. Someone was even quacking like a duck. I noticed some tiny flames here and there.

"Should we be running?" I asked Lola timidly.

"Probably."

And we ran, Jasmine quickly following behind us. We reached the Big House and hid inside, behind Chiron and his wheelchair. He gave us a funny look, as though Kristen did this often and our behavior was not normal.

"Sh-she's been doing this for the last t-two days," Jasmine muttered, panting.

"Seriously?" Lola and I said in unison. Then, alone, Lola said, "Pathetic. Doesn't she have a better use of time? Read, practice sword-fighting, practice archery, fly a pegasus, go swimming, _I don't care. _Just stop setting things on fire, woman!"

"Careful," I warned. "If she hears you say that, she may haunt you the rest of your life, and hers. Not to mention give you unsightly purple ear hair and make you sing opera for three days straight."

"Cruel and unusual punishment," she muttered as a spark of fire went over our heads and behind us. Luckily, it didn't set the whole house to fire.

I heard Kyle speaking to someone. "Seriously? Is this the emergency?"

"No," said a familiar voice, and I knew at once it was Isabelle Slate. "The emergency is a lot bigger than this. She's just trying to calm herself down…I think."

"That's not calm," said someone else. "That's mad."

"Well, agreed, but…you never know. Maybe she's scared."

"Her? Scared?" Kyle said. "She's not scared, she trying to make the rest of us scared. Of her."

"Anyways, boys, besides Kristen acting like a lunatic—"

"Acting," the other boy snorted. "Sure."

"—we _do_ have a serious problem. A camper has been taken somewhere and we need to find her. For Zachary."

Kyle was silent for a moment. "What do you mean, 'for Zachary'? He's up in that cave, talking to Rachel about a prophecy, he's not missing or in danger."

"No, not yet. But his sister was taken, and he could be next. Besides, we have to save her."

I got up and went over to them. "McKenna Smith, you mean?"

"Yes, how do you—"started Isabelle. But then she remembered. "Oh."

I looked at the other boy they were talking with. He had reddish-brown hair and a green shirt. I didn't really bother trying to assess the rest of him, I didn't really care.

"Chiron's going to announce a quest in a minute. _And _who's going. They've already sent out a large search party for McKenna, and they haven't called back since. The IMs aren't working, the connection is breaking. And you know who's in the group?"

I gulped. I had a feeling I knew.

"Annabeth and Percy. Nico is there, too, and Katie Gardner. The Stolls are still here, we don't need to worry about them, but…"

I wasn't expecting Annabeth, Nico, or Katie. I had only suspected Percy. But if Katie was missing, if Annabeth was missing..? How would Lola feel when she heard that Nico was missing?

I found out how she would feel, for Lola was now standing right next to me. The second Nico had been involved, she had come. "Nico? What? H-how could they be missing?"

"I don't know," Isabelle said, sighing. "They just…are. We can't even contact them, they're worse than missing. It's like they've just disappeared. Whenever we try, all we get is darkness. Either that's where they are, in darkness, or something's wrong. Very wrong."

"Ok, you're getting a little bit too dramatic for my taste," the other boy said.

"I side with Darius," said Kyle. "You're going overboard, even for me, and, well, let's admit it, I'm not very bright. I know, it sounds weird, because you know me as a genius. But it's true. And anyways, I like drama. But right now, you're…yeah. I'm with Darius on this one."

Darius looked pleased.

"Fine," said Isabelle stubbornly. "But both of you are getting nightmares tonight."

They sighed and walked away.

"We're on your side," Lola said.

"Thanks…oh, here comes Zachary with the list."

"List?" I asked.

"Of people to go on the quest. It's gonna be a big group, I can tell you that…not just three people."

"Which gives us a bigger chance of going on another quest…woo-hoo, I'm thrilled." Isabelle laughed at my sarcasm.

"Campers, campers!" shouted Chiron from his wheelchair. Apparently he wasn't bothering with being a horse today.

"Gather around, everyone!"

Soon, as though Chiron's voice was like a light to them and they were fireflies, every camper was there, except for Kristen, who was still blowing things up. He did a head count.

"Good, good," he muttered. "Now, as you probably all know, a girl has been snatched by our enemies, Kronos' old followers. Kronos is gone forever, but his servants remain loyal and, unfortunately, intact. Some of our number has crossed over to them, including our old friend, Drake O'Johnsford, a girl called Leslie Davis, and a boy named Noah, whose last name is unbeknownst to us. But, no matter, we must go on. _Life _must go on." He paused. "I have the list of campers here. It is a list of campers that will go on the quest to find this girl and, if possible, take down the monsters and evil demigods that threaten to avenge their master. We've already sent out a search party, but they have gone missing, down a lost road. They cannot find her. Once the girl is saved, we can find them, if they are not already found along the way. This is Zachary Smith's quest. A quest to find his own twin sister, McKenna."

I heard a gasp in the crowd. They must not have known that McKenna was gone.

"Yes, it is sad. Now, if you hear your name, stand with Zachary. It means you are to go on the quest. Giselle Nissan."

A happy, red-head girl gracefully strode on up and stood with Zachary.

"Corry Yutes."

A scruffy-haired, familiar-looking boy grudgingly stood on the other side of Zachary. Guessing by the look on his face, he was darn worried about McKenna.

"Karen Karr."

Another red-head stood next to Giselle.

"Darius False."

Kyle's friend with the reddish-brown hair and green shirt went up. Zachary and Corry were looking strange with all the red-heads surrounding them.

"Kyle Delnz."

There were some claps. Apparently they thought Kyle was smart and awesome. Or they were just as stupid as him.

"Greg Willins."

What a coincidence, that two best friends were trapped on a dangerous, life-threatening quest together. Yay.

I hadn't noticed Greg anywhere until he went up. I'd been looking everywhere; Kyle had said that, yes, he was at Camp.

"Rosa van Cleaven."

This was getting creepy.

"Kristen."

As it got creepier, I noticed how he didn't bother to say her last name. Everyone must have known. Karen Karr looked horrified.

"Jasmine Hope."

Even creepier.

"Lola Ruman."

Creepier than ever. I just had to hope I didn't hear what I didn't want to hear…

"Gordon Prowls."

Ok, well, I didn't know him, but I was pretty sure he was one of the boys that my half-sister Clarisse had yelled at last year, as well as 'Mark' and 'Sherman'. I could still hear her shouting his name.

"Elijah Frisco."

"Louis Miller."

I smiled. I remembered Louis.

"Rico Killu."

'Killu'? It was pronounced 'kill you'. I wouldn't have been surprised if his middle name was 'Will'. It probably was. I was freaked out.

"Penelope Killu."

There was more of them? Great.

"Carlos San Carlos."

I snorted.

"Field Lent."

I heard a few boos. Clearly, no one liked this guy. I heard a very loud boo from up front; I realized it was Rosa.

"Tyler Heck."

I snorted again.

"Annika Roel."

"Davie Songstrom."

"Eve Benson."

I flinched. What? I was not going to replace Annabeth and the others. Besides, I'd just been on a quest, how could this happen?

I walked up reluctantly.

"Travis Stoll."

The list ended there.

"Ok, go back to whatever you were doing. Quest campers, go pack. You leave in three days."

I was in shock.

"I'm only fifteen," I demanded. "And so is Lola, and so is Greg. We could die on this thing."

Zachary gave me his best death glare. "Do you want to help me save my sister or not?"

I couldn't argue there. McKenna was a good girl…and if we didn't get there soon, Leslie would kill her.

Yeah, that didn't worry me or anything.

I didn't have much to pack, so I made the Stolls help me rob the Camp store. I got a sleeping bag, new toiletries, the basics. Anything else I needed, I already had. For example, my sword was already with me. In my free time when I was bored, I would unsheathe it and sheath it and unsheathe it and sheath it just to watch it elongate and go back. It was sort of fun.

In my other free time, I did canoe racing with Lola, practiced archery with Kyle, practiced sword-fighting with Greg ("Sorry Greg!" I would say. "No, it's okay, it's only a little blood," he would respond), argued with Rosa from time to time, and suffered being followed around by a certain twelve-year-old annoyance named Jasmine Hope. Once, I had been climbing the rock wall when I heard her shout, "HI EVE! YOU'RE ALMOST TO THE TOP, KEEP GOING! THE LAVA ISN'T THAT BAD!" It startled me, and I nearly fell off the whole rock wall. I did fall, but luckily, I caught hold of the wall before any serious damage could befall me. I groaned. Yes, I _had_ almost been to the top…until she startled me and I decreased to halfway. Thank you so much, 'Jazzy'.

However, there had been times when I'd had a decent conversation with Jasmine. After all, she hadn't been all that bad at the orphanage, so I tried to give her a chance. Once, we'd talked about the quest last year (apparently she'd met another person who was obsessed with me—cough cough—Greg – cough cough—that had told her every last bit of it), another time she'd brought up godly parents.

"I got claimed by Apollo last week. Who's your parent?"

"Ares," I murmured.

"Oh, ok."

It didn't set with me well that her dad was Apollo. I didn't like Apollo, and with reason. Well, you know the whole incorrect-claiming bit.

I _knew _Jasmine seemed off. Because her dad was, too. I just had to hope that she didn't share the same love of horrible haikus.

The next day, I was walking to the cabin to get my sword, because I was about to spar with Greg again and I'd left it there, when a tall blonde boy who looked so much like Quinn that it startled me came up to me. I looked at him, and the only distinction I could think of between him and Quinn were the eyes; Quinn's were blue, this boy's eyes were brown.

"I'm Field. Field Lent."

He held forward a rough-looking hand. I didn't shake it. Instead, I bit my lip and stuttered.

"Er, hi."

"So…you're going on the quest, too."

"Yep," I replied awkwardly.

"I'd rather not," he said. "I hate quests. I'd rather stay here."

"I don't really care either way," I said.

"Ehh…"

I didn't really like this guy.

Then, Rosa came up, with her spear. Her eyes were not the usual brown—they were white. White hot, like she was angry. Basically, I could only see her pupils.

"Get _away_ from her, Field. Now."

"What's stopping me exactly?"

"I'm stopping you, birdbrain. Now get away from her," she growled, spear raised. He raised his hands in defeat.

"Fine. I will leave."

And he did.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Field. He's probably the worst person in the whole camp. Really rude, really creepy. Most of us think he's in league with Kronos' followers, he's that bad," she said. "That's why he got so many boos when he was called up. Everyone hates that guy. I'm one of them. Well, you heard me booing him louder than anyone…I came over because I thought he might be doing something to you."

"So you care."

"I'm not soulless." Her eyes were back to normal at this point.

"Good point." Then, I dared to ask. "What was with your eyes? They were white."

"Oh. Some Aphrodite kids' eyes change. Some randomly change, some depend on the mood. Some of us don't have the eye thing at all. I'm one of the mood ones. Each moody Aphrodite kid has different colors for different emotions, they're not normally the same. Obviously, my normal is brown. White, however, is anger. It must look really weird when I'm angry, because, well, pupils."

"It did."

"Thought it would."

"How come your eyes are never white when you're upset with me?"

"It's only for _true _anger. And I truly hate Field. I don't, however, truly hate you. I just…get annoyed. That's all it is. But, of course, while I'm not in a good mood, you'll never hear me admit that. I'd probably say that I hate you."

"I think you have said that, actually."

"Have I? Sorry."

Rosa was apologizing? This was weird.

"Well, I need to go sword-fight. I was going to get my sword," I said.

"Okay. I need to face the wall…yay, time to scorch myself," she said, and then ran off.

That was a really weird conversation. Rosa was being _nice_. Normally, 'Rosa' and 'nice' didn't belong in the same sentence.

When I'd gotten my sword and arrived at the arena, I told Greg about everything that had happened.

"Yeah, nobody likes Field, and they have reason."

"Do you believe he's in league with Kronos' followers?" I asked.

He sighed. "Yes."

"Anyways…sword-fight?"

He grinned. "You bet." And then our swords clashed.

* * *

**Did you like how I made you, Kris? xD Was it good enough? And yes, you get to go on the quest. Writing you being a nutjob is a joy to me :U**

**AGAIN, sorry I took long. Not my fault.**

**So, along with Ministry of Magic, I've also fallen in love with the Disney Channel show 'My Babysitter's a Vampire'. Especially Rori 3 I felt so bad for him in episode 8, at the end.**

**Anyways, I will try to update sooner. If I can't, that's your problem that you're not patient. I put up with waiting for stories, so therefore, so can you.**

**Remember the name Field, anyone? MWUAHAHA.**

**Anyone like that Jasmine's back? Yeah, I had to. I decided, when I made Eve go to the orphanage, that I needed to name the second girl Jasmine, because my vision of her simply looked like a Jasmine. I checked my list of demigods, and there was already a daughter of Apollo there named Jasmine Hope. So, I decided, 'go for it'. I was busting up with laughter on the inside when I was writing her, while Eve and Lola were thinking she was completely mortal, because they were darn wrong. JASMINE FOREVER!**

**So...bye :)**

**P.S. For you wanters of Eve/Greg, don't worry, you'll get it soon enough. It's coming, just trust me. And Greg has to lie to make sure of it XD Eh, do I need to explain? You can see it later. But it involves an angry Lola, I can tell you that.**


	7. We Put Our Lives At Risk

**PLEASE READ: I am cutting Noah from the script. One, I have nothing to really do with him, and two, I just can't be bothered to keep going with him. I'll find revenge in some other form.**

**Well, that dream I had last night was weird :D A bad character named Jesse from My Babysitter's a Vampire killed Greg to get to Eve for some unknown reason xD And then Eve teamed up with Ethan, Benny, and Rory to take Jesse down. Jesse almost killed Eve, too, but then Rory saved her x3 I knew I loved Rory. Anyways, and then Rory and Jesse were having a full-on battle, and then, out of the blue, Lola and Kyle came simply to give Eve ambrosia and nectar so that she'd get better, and then they left. THEY LEFT WHEN THEIR BEST FRIEND WAS IN MORTAL PERIL OMG. Finally, Rory threw Jesse against a wall and then Eve stabbed him with her sword and he disintegrated. Apparently celestial bronze works on vampires, too xD And then, Eve hugged Rory, and he was all, "WOAH :DDD" and Ethan and Benny were really confused. And then the dream ended. Yep, the dream ended and we didn't even get Greg back xD I knew I hated Jesse.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or Kristen. Kristen owns herself. If I claimed otherwise, I'd get vaporized.**

**Claimer: Most of the characters and all of the events belong to ME**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**We Put Our Lives At Risk**

If I'd known that practicing with my sword would get both of us in the hospital wing, I would never have suggested it. But, naturally, since all things bad must happen to Eve Benson, it happened, and there was no turning back now. We were already stuck in infirmary beds.

"Sorry for almost cutting you in half," Greg muttered.

"Sorry for almost decapitating you," I replied.

"Sorry for almost cutting you off at the shins," he said.

"And I am sorry for nearly killing you."

He laughed, but it was a sort of a dead laughter. It was probably because he was in too much pain to laugh any harder.

I looked outside, and saw two people coming. And it was probably the weirdest thing ever. You know why?

It was Lola and Rosa.

I didn't think that those two would ever agree on anything. But clearly, they'd agreed on coming over here together. If, at all, in my dizziest daydreams, I'd imagined that they would agree on anything, I'd have figured that Lola would at least want to walk farther away from Rosa. But they were practically side-by-side, like they had been best buds for years. This was weird.

When they entered, I questioned them immediately.

"What are you doing here?"

"Geez, Ms. Paranoid, we simply agreed on checking on you," said Lola. I turned to Rosa and raised an eyebrow. She scowled. I wondered why she would want to bother seeing me. Last year, she'd tried to kill me, and now she was making sure I wasn't dead. Rosa van Cleaven was a very unbalanced girl.

"I can still question you, can't I?" I muttered. Lola didn't appear to have heard me.

"So…you're okay?"

"Yes, we're fine."

They stood there for a moment.

"You can leave," I added.

They both muttered, "Ohhhh" at the same moment, as though they'd taken a hint about something or other, and then left. I rolled my eyes. I knew Rosa was weird, but Lola? Not what I'd expected.

"What was that about?" Greg asked.

"No clue."

Later...

"Is this place anti-explosive or something?" I wondered aloud.

"Must be," muttered Lola as we watched Kristen bomb the place again. That was one person I would not enjoy going on a quest with. _Too bad,_ part of my brain said. _She's coming whether you like it or not._ I told the part of my brain to shut up.

"This won't be easy," Lola said. "The quest. Especially with _her_ along." She pointed to Kristen, which was hard to do considering she was moving around in rapid speed all over the place.

"Heck yes," I muttered. "If she's coming, then I'm going to find a way to leave."

"Agreed. If she's going to act calm on the quest, then I'm a panda bear."

"I don't think I've ever seen a panda wear a bright orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt," I joked. "Or jeans. Or a sword necklace. Or shoes. Or have blonde hair—"

"I get it!"

"'Kay," I said quietly. Lola scared me when she was angry.

Lola sighed. "I just wish that Chiron didn't have to pick us for this quest."

"He didn't. Something else did."

"We know Zachary didn't choose. He seemed to hate one of the guys up there, and who would bring Kristen?"

"Not to mention Field."

"Oh yeah, him, too," she said.

"You've met him?"

"Yep. Starting telling me about your conversation. Is it true that you were attempting to hold his hand?"

"No! Why would I ever try to hold a creep's hand? That would be like letting a burglar come in your house and giving him a nice, big, bear hug," I said.

"I figured that creep was lying. I just had to be sure. Some people think he's in league with Kronos' followers."

"Rosa already filled me in on that, but thanks."

"Oh, she did? Ok then, I won't waste my breath on it."

We looked at Kristen, who was wreaking havoc still.

"Doesn't anyone ever stop that loon?" I asked.

"If anyone did, you know they'd be attacked by a bunch of evil little elves and a steamroller," Lola said, putting her hands on her waist.

"Good point."

"Now, if we want to get away from the vampire ninja maniac, we should go somewhere else."

"How?" I asked. "She's going everywhere except for the cabins and the Big House!"

We looked at each other and ran for the Big House. When we got there, we ran halfway up the staircase and stayed there.

I panted. "Should someone call Animal Control?"

"Even if we did, they wouldn't be able to get in here!"

"Right. Never mind."

Eventually, Kristen's explosive, creepy happiness died down and she went to her cabin. Thank goodness for that. We went down the staircase and walked to the Pegasus stables. After all, if Kristen started again, what place would be safer than the air? _Unless she uses fireworks next_, I thought. But I tried not to think of that too much.

We hadn't even gotten in the air before Kyle came running.

"Hope you're packed, because we'll be leaving soon."

"…Yay," Lola said sarcastically. "I'm so excited."

"I am, too!" Kyle said enthusiastically. Clearly, he had no sense of sarcasm.

Lola sighed and got off her horse. I did the same and then patted the horse on the neck, because it wasn't any horse; it was Jet, my Pegasus, if any of you remember him.

"Kyle, why are you so happy about this?" Lola asked.

"Why shouldn't I be happy? Besides, you say so yourself that you were excited, too!"

She smacked her hand to her forehead. "Forget it. You're a stupid idiot, my friend."

"I may be an idiot, but I am not stu—"

"_Enough _with the iCarly references, man! I thought we established this! No more quotes, or I will kill you."

"…Okay."

Lola ran off to the Hades cabin to get her things. I said goodbye to Kyle, because I was nicer than my friend, and sprinted to my cabin. When I got out with my stuff, there was a very eager-looking Greg-and-Kyle-duo standing right outside the door. Lola was off to the side waiting. They all had their bags and suitcases and boxes of things that they'd need or want.

We walked to the Big House, where nearly all the campers were waiting. There was a separate group for the people who were going on the quest, and we entered it. I saw Connor Stoll hugging his brother and talking to him.

"Stay safe, Fred."

"Of course, George."

I didn't know why they were pretending to be characters from Harry Potter, but I dismissed it and looked around. I saw Clarisse trying to make her way through the crowd, threatening to pummel any kids who didn't let her through. I saw Katie Gardner, talking with Isabelle. I saw Isabelle talking to Katie. Then I saw them making their way through to us. I wish I could say that I'd seen Percy and Annabeth coming up to see us off, maybe even give us goodbye hugs, but they were lost. I had to rid myself of all hope of seeing them soon.

Isabelle made her way to us. "Bye guys," she said, bringing all four of us into an very uncomfortable, squashed bear hug.

"Bye Isabelle," Kyle said. "See you if—"Lola punched him in the arm. "—_when_ we get back."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," I said. "You're not coming, are you?"

"Nope," she said sadly. "Shame, too. McKenna's an old friend of mine. Keep her safe for me, okay?"

"No problem," Greg said doubtfully.

Then Katie squeezed her way through, bumping into Lola, Kyle and I. She panted.

"Goodbye," she said hoarsely, because she was still panting. "Oh, and Eve?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be IM-ing you."

"Should I have brought a laptop?"

"No, no, Iris Messaging, not Instant Messaging. I thought you'd gotten that down already."

"Oh, right. Never mind then."

"Campers!" Chiron shouted.

He was making his way to our group, his horse half unintentionally bumping people aside. "Now," he said, "if any of you ever need it on the trip, you'll need to know how to use it—the Mist. Simply snap. If it does not work, keep going or get another to do it. If you are at all separated, _do not call them_. It would attract monsters to them and you. Be very cautious."

He turned back and began to go up to the Big House again.

And so we left.

It was only when I saw Argus' car that I realized we would _never_ fit. And, honey, if I was squashed between two boys again, I'd have to murder somebody. That was not happening again.

But then I saw another car behind it, a big truck. It took me a moment to decipher what it said. It read, "Delphi Strawberry Service". I seemed to recall asking Barry about that, what felt like years ago.

As we loaded into the truck, I found two things to my disliking: one, it smelled like rotten strawberries inside there, and two, I was stuck sitting next to Kristen. And a surprise third, we had no seatbelts. We would be flying around like mad if there was an accident or a sharp turn or a short stop.

One girl was pacing around the vehicle, and that wasn't hard to do, because this was a huge car. Even with all of us, and there were probably over twenty of us, there was lots of space left.

"It'll be okay, Annika, we'll find McKenna," said the girl that I was fairly certain was Karen Karr. "Zachary got real close last time, right Zachary?"

"Uh-huh. Yep," he said unenthusiastically. I remembered my dream, so I knew what they were talking about. Lola, however, was confused, so I explained.

It was a long ride out of…well, wherever we were. Not to mention Kristen was threatening to turn my eyebrows green and turn my hair into fire if I didn't do something for her. And what she wanted from me was to tell Greg I loved him more than my favorite teddy bear Mr. Snuggles (I told her I'd rather look like a geek with green eyebrows), tell Zachary that McKenna would be dead by the time we got there (I told her to go to Hades), put on a crown and say "I'm a pretty princess" (I swore at her in Greek), run around in Greek battle armor asking mortals if they'd seen a Minotaur anywhere (I asked if she'd been having a little too much fun with my reactions to the creepy dares) and kiss Field (which resulted in a kick in the shin and me telling her that I'd rather have fire hair—the flames would over heat my body, then I would die, and then I'd hopefully forget that she even suggested it.)

Along the way, Darius suggested we play a new demigod pastime: Truth or Dare. Some campers were confused, as though they'd never heard of it. Then Kyle helped explain the rules, and everyone seemed to like it, especially Kristen. I could just picture her blowing up the truck and making us travel on a tractor full of goose guts instead, which made me sincerely hope that no one here actually _wanted_ this girl to go crazy.

"Truth or dare, Kyle?" asked Elijah Frisco.

"Dare!"

"Uh…hm, there isn't much we can do in here, is there? Um…I dare you to…do the chicken dance!" Elijah said.

Kyle did so, and I have been mentally scarred ever since.

"Uh…Rosa, truth or dare?" Kyle asked.

"Truth," she said in an annoyed tone.

"Do you have a crush on me?"

"No, now hush up," she snapped. A couple of people laughed. But I knew that she was telling the truth, and that's all that mattered. At least Kyle didn't look too let down. I mean, after all, wasn't he still with the dryad?

"Penelope, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Hug your brother to death."

"No."

"Hug Kyle to death."

"No."

"Squeeze Field to death?"

"Done!" she announced, running over to Field and squeezing the living daylights out of him. Only when Field managed to kick her in the shin did she let go.

"Kristen?" Penelope asked.

"Yes?" she asked politely.

"Truth or dare?"

"DARE, DARE, DARE!" she shouted.

_This won't end well_, I thought.

Penelope paused. "I dare you to…strap a bomb to Field's chest!"

"OK!" Kristen responded immediately. She had almost gotten the bomb out of her bag when we all shouted, "NO!"

"WHY NOT?"

"BECAUSE IT WOULD BLOW UP THE TRUCK!" Lola yelled.

"Oohhh…"

When she looked like she was about to do it anyways, I hurriedly said, "Kristen, why don't you ask someone if they want to do a truth or dare?"

"But I want to blow up Field."

"You can blow him up later," I whispered very quietly. I slipped her a drachma.

"Fine," she said angrily. "Zachary, truth or dare?"

He sighed. "Ah…truth."

"Do you believe we'll find your sister?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"Are you—"

"KAREN, truth or dare?" he said, cutting Kristen off.

"Dare," she said.

"Um…do whatever you feel like doing. I'm bad at creating dares."

"Okay, fine…uh…" She went over to Kyle and kissed him on the cheek. Then she sat down and tried to pretend it never happened.

People laughed, but Kyle was not included. He was just sitting there, petrified, rubbing the spot on his cheek where she'd kissed him, either trying to get rid of it or wishing she'd do it again. If Tierra, the dryad he was with, were here, she'd have slapped him. So, I decided to take over for her and slapped him.

"What was that for?"

"Tierra would be ashamed," I teased. He stuck his tongue out at me.

"Uh, Greg, truth or dare?" Karen asked hurriedly.

"Truth," he muttered.

"Um…do you like anyone?"

When he refused to respond, I raised my hand for him.

Nervously, Greg stuttered, "Uh, Lola! T-truth or dare?"

"Oh, what the heck. Dare."

"I dare you to—"

"—ius started this thing, somebody just pick him!"

"What?" Greg asked.

"I said, 'Darius started this thing, somebody just pick him!' Clear?"

"Fine! Darius, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Er…why didn't you pick dare?"

"Is that the truth question?"

"Yes," Greg said.

"I didn't pick dare because I didn't want to. Travis, truth or dare?"

"Dare, of course!" Travis said as though the idea of picking truth had mortally offended him.

"Put whipped cream in someone's pillow when we get to a campsite."

"Easy. I brought my can," he replied, pulling a whipped cream bottle out of his bag.

Suddenly, most of us were clutching our bags of possessions very tightly.

"Oh, Tyler!" said Travis.

"What?"

"Will it be truth? Or will it be dare?"

"Truth."

"What's your favorite TV show?"

He didn't respond.

"Movie?"

"…I'm not telling you."

"Fine, be secretive. Um…Annika, truth or dare?"

"I'm not playing," she murmured.

"Ugh! Rico, truth or dare?"

"Dare," he said.

"Punch Field."

"What is this, 'Have-All-the-Creepy-People-Gang-Up-On-Field' day or something?" Field demanded.

"Pretty much, yeah," replied Travis.

"Who are you calling creepy?" Rico demanded. He hit Field in the face.

"…Ow."

"Carlos, truth or dare?"

"You know I'm one for dares, Rico," said Carlos San Carlos.

"I dare you to use your karate skills on Field."

"Yes! I knew being a black belt would come in handy."

"Oh, come on!" Field shouted. "You're not creepy, Carlos, but—OW!"

I could hear Rosa laughing so hard that she was snorting. I didn't like Field either, but there was no proof that he was evil, so I didn't join in.

"Louis, truth or dare?" asked Carlos.

"Oh…truth," said Louis.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

I heard some, 'Oooooooooh's, most of which were coming from Kyle.

"None of your beeswax," Louis responded.

"Oh, c'mon!"

"Fine…no. Giselle, truth or dare?" Louis asked.

"Dare."

I could go on, but I'm sure you're getting just as tired of this as I am. Basically, it kept going until it hit Davie Songstrom, who asked me if I would take truth or dare. I picked truth, just in case he made me do something gross or do something to Field. When he asked if I'd ever killed an empousa, I told him I'd forgotten, and then asked Jasmine if she wanted to take truth or dare. I won't continue the rest of the Truth or Dare conversation.

I fell asleep during the ride, and you know what happened? You guessed it. Another dream. Clearly, Isabelle wasn't sticking to her promise very well.

"Guess what, princess?" Leslie said. "You were right. They're coming for you. We've been notified."

"By who?" I demanded. If they'd figured out that we were coming for McKenna, there had to be a spy inside the camp. I'd kill the slimy traitor.

"Field Lent, of course. Who did you think it was, Nico di Angelo?"

So it _was_ Field. Rosa, Greg, everyone—they'd been right. Suddenly I didn't feel so bad about what had happened to him during Truth or Dare.

"The camp is not going to crumble," I told her.

"Believe what you will, but all your friend's will die," she said, holding out the word 'die'. McKenna whimpered. "Oh yeah, I forgot, McKenna. Your _brother's_ in that mix of campers coming, isn't he? And don't forget—your _boyfriend_ is coming, too, huh? Corry Yutes, isn't it?"

I didn't know Corry was McKenna's boyfriend. Well, that explained who she was with on the beach that night, last summer, when it was some sort of couples' night. It also explained why he looked so worried when he walked up next to Zachary for the quest.

"Shut up," I said.

"Then again, we may not have to kill them if Zachary and Corry kill each other and everyone else first."

"What do you mean?"

"You've always known that your brother and Corry can't stand each other. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean."

"Just give it up, Leslie," I muttered.

"Oh, that's pretty impossible for us to do," said a male voice. I groaned.

"_What_, Drake?"

"Nothing in particular, really. Just coming to say 'hello'," he said.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, right," I said.

"Honestly, I'm not coming here to hurt you this time. I was actually coming to take Leslie to our fight session. But don't worry, we'll be back later," he said.

"Later," Leslie said, and they left.

I woke up, and looked around. Lola, Greg, Zachary, and Corry were all asleep, no doubt dreaming about McKenna. Everyone else was awake and bored, except for Kristen, who was having a blast blowing a duck call into Field's ear.

Which reminded me: Field.

I shoved Kristen out of the way, which she did not like (I knew because she swore at me and said she'd get her revenge), and punched him in the face.

"What was that for?" he shouted, though he wasn't very audible over the cheers from other campers.

"I know," I whispered into his ear. Then I kicked him in the shin and sat down. Kristen was saying, "Revenge!" into my ear again and again. Finally, I gave up and handed her a drachma.

"Revenge no longer required?" I asked.

"…_Maybe_. We shall see."

And with that, she continued duck-calling into Field's ear. He didn't dare stop her, of course, because if he did, he'd get worse than the duck call.

Much later, Argus dropped us off at the same place he'd dropped Kyle, Lola, Greg and I off at the last time. I glared at the Burger King. When Louis and Elijah suggested we get a bite at the Burger King, Lola, Greg, Kyle and I all shouted, "NO!" at the same time.

"Why not?" Louis asked.

After we'd finished explaining what had happened at that place last year, they agreed that we should find another place. We never did end up going out for food, but instead made camp at that 'perfect spot' Lola had suggested last year, aka the-spot-where-Lola-and-I-were-fighting-and-I-went-in-the-cave-and-had-a-dream-about-Rosa's-past-and-then-the-cave-collapsed-on-me-and-my-friends-dug-me-up-and-then-we-all-got-stuck-because-Kyle-has-broad-hips-and-couldn't-get-through-and-then-the-hubby-darts-thing. I wasn't exactly all for going there, and neither was Greg, but we ended up doing it anyway. When Lola saw the rubble of the cave, she looked very proud of herself, because she'd been the one to climb it, stab her sword through it, and jump off before it exploded on her.

Jasmine didn't like the place at all. The cave ruins creeped her out, and she didn't like being out in the humid weather with not many other humans around.

"You've got us," Rosa soothed. "Don't worry, nothing will happen."

"Well, unless we go into that huge cave over there," Kyle said, pointing to the place where the monsters had been waiting for us. Greg punched him in the arm.

"Or if the monsters come out—" he began, but Greg punched him in the arm again. "I mean, we'll be fine!"

_I hope so_, I thought.

* * *

**Ta da! And guess what, Greg didn't even get killed by a vampire! Hooray!**

**Did you like it, Kristen? I think you did.**

**By the way, I had this idea for a My Babysitter's a Vampire episode. Ethan's little sister, Jane, can get a new friend and she could be a vampire, and then whatever else happens int eh episode can happen. The vampire friend could have a recurring role in the series. I'd write a fanfic, except I don't have enough ideas for the rest.**

**Seriously, go off and watched My Babysitter's a Vampire. First, find the movie. Then, find the series. You will not regret it.**


	8. We Are Attacked By Drunk Loons

**Hellooooooo! Welcome to Chapter 8!**

**We hope you enjoy your stay and please come back soon!**

**Ok, enough of my silly intro. Anyways, I have an announcement to make. This chapter is my longest EVER. 5,770 words! I've only once before made it past just the 4,000 mark (aka chapter four of this story). And I got most of it done in just one day. I _told_ my mom I had a writing muse at the moment. Was I wrong? No, I wasn't. :3**

**Prepare for: giggles, revenge-sorta, Kristen, scaryness, and creepy people =D Have a nice day!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO. We've established this.**

**Claimer: I own everything else besides Kristen. We established that a while back as well.**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**We Are Attacked By Drunk Loons**

So basically, Kyle sort of lied to us without trying to.

Do you remember how he said we'd be fine? Well, he was telling the truth up until a certain point. We were fine for a long time, in fact.

Once when we were walking, we did come across the evil spa lair of the sorceress Circe again. Hylla, the girl who'd asked us for our names the last time, came up to us. When I snapped that she should beat it before I got mad, she went away fairly quickly. Another woman, a blonde one this time, came to ask us our names, but we all ignored her, like smart people. Greg looked the most nervous out of our group, and I really didn't blame him. I knew he didn't want to be turned into a turtle for a second time. That wasn't the kind of thing you do more than once. Besides, I really didn't feel like carrying another turtle halfway across town.

We kept walking, and walking, and walking. There was nothing peculiar or confusing, it seemed like a normal place. Everyone was there, everyone was fine.

Well, almost everyone.

"Um, Zachary, I think we're missing someone," Lola said after a while.

"Who is it? I don't see any difference to the group," he responded, looking around.

Lola smacked her forehead with annoyance. "That's because you probably didn't see her well over the rest of us taller people to begin with. Jasmine's missing."

Suddenly, our group came to a stop.

"What?" Zachary demanded. "What do you mean she's gone?" He did a head count, and sure enough, no sign of the perky twelve year-old.

"I mean, she's gone," Lola snapped. "Missing, gone, poof, out of sight, nowhere to be found. Got that?" Lola always scared me when she was annoyed, but luckily, this was one of her calmer rages.

I didn't get how Jasmine could disappear, unless someone had abducted her or something while we weren't paying attention to her. I suddenly felt really guilty. I mean, we'd promised her that we were there for her, that we would keep her safe. When and if we found her, I promised myself that I would keep an eye out for her, maybe even give her a sisterly hug.

When no one else offered up anywhere that she might've gone, I said, "The blonde woman, back there at the spa. Would she have been taken by her while we weren't watching?"

"But she was standing right next to me," Carlos said.

"Were you paying any attention to her?" Lola asked.

"Not really," he replied, his face being taken over with a look of guilt and horror.

"Then that settles it," she said sharply. "Let's go back."

"I really wish this wasn't happening," I heard Zachary mumble. "It's only slowing us down."

Clearly, Lola caught it, too.

"What if you were her? You'd expect your friends to come and save you, wouldn't you?" She said it with such force that I was very glad that I wasn't Zachary right now.

"Yeah," Zachary said in a small voice. "I guess that does make sense."

"Then, c'mon, dunderhead, let's go find Jasmine!" she shouted. There were a couple of cheers here and there.

As we started to walk back, I went over to Lola. "That was nice of you," I said. "I really didn't think you cared about Jasmine."

"Zachary didn't seem to care that much. All he cares about right now is finding his sister. That's only natural, of course, and I want to find her, too, but… it didn't look like anyone else was going to stick up for her. You got to do what you got to do, right?" she said.

It was nice knowing that at least she looked like she was trying to like Jasmine. I mean, after all, she was the one that had sent me a letter after Jasmine had been adopted saying, "_Good, Jasmine is gone and out of our lives. I heard that she was adopted…thank goodness, too, because she was totally eyeing me when I was making the air freshener thingy. She was on to the both of us. It's better for us now. Anyway, be sure to trash or give back anything that Jasmine had, or Becca will be on our trail next. I'll do it if you don't get to it by tonight. I'm serious, I will break and enter and tear up everything, throw everything out the window, possibly including Becca. If she's unconscious, she'll go to the hospital and we're home free! Sincerely, your totally un-scheming friend, Lola Anne Ruman." _If that didn't spell hatred, I didn't know what did.

"Right," I responded. "Oh, by the way, thanks for not throwing Becca out the window."

She laughed.

At that moment, Greg came up to us. "Please, please, please, please, _please_ don't leave us alone with that witch again," he stuttered.

"And why exactly would we do that?" Lola questioned. "That's the kind of mistake you only make once, my friend."

"Yeah," I agreed. "We have definitely learned our lesson. Besides, do you realize what they took us away for? They actually tried to paint my nails. They are so lucky that they're still alive."

"No kidding," she said. "Do you know how many cucumber slices I had to throw at them before they stopped trying to stick them on my face?"

"Gross, that's what happened over there? Compared to that, I think I'll take being a turtle again, thank you very much," Greg mused.

"Oh, believe me, honey, I'd take that, too," I said.

"Honey?" he asked hopefully.

"Don't get your hopes up, dude, that's not what I meant."

He looked sad for a little while after that. Now I was feeling guilty for two things: letting Jasmine get lost _and_ upsetting one of my closest friends. I sighed. "What will it take to make you happy again?" I asked.

When he started to look very happy, I knew he was about to say 'kiss' or something, and I put my hand over his mouth. "Never mind," I breathed. "Just forget it, Casanova."

We continued to walk. As we walked, I remembered something that had happened last summer, at the end of our quest. When Thalia and I had an argument while on our way back to the camp, she had said something. It echoed in my ears. "_You're a different Ares child. You're not like the other bloodthirsty killers," _she had said.

That was very true. Clarisse, I'd learned, was the most aggressive person in the whole camp. Clarisse could make Lola look like a harmless butterfly. The others, like Sherman, Mark, and Gordon, weren't as aggressive, but they were a lot like Clarisse. I hardly fit into that cabin. I may as well have been an Apollo or Hermes camper.

Clearly, I was much more like my mother than my father. My father was the god of war, bloodlust, all that bad stuff. But my mother had been a sweet, caring woman. How she'd decided she liked Ares, I didn't know. I just knew that I was more like her. Sometimes, I would act like a real Ares child. I would fight and insult and be an utter jerk. But if I were like that all the time, nobody would like me. Greg would never have fallen for me the very first moment I'd met him if I was a perpetual loser. He didn't even back off when he'd figured out my parentage. He was the same as always.

After a while, we made it back to Circe's place. The place looked just the way it did last time, except I wasn't going piggy-back on Greg this time. There were lounge chairs everywhere, bunches of girls, palm trees, all that resort-y stuff. The major downside was the fact that there were wild animals everywhere. How it appeared in New York when Percy had once told me, after our quest last year, that he'd come across it in Miami, Florida, I had no clue. I tried to think about it, but my ADHD got the best of me and my brain began going a million miles an hour on random roads. I had no idea where it was going, but I just had to focus on saving Jasmine.

"Names?" asked another different woman. Lola put her hand over Kyle's mouth before he could say anything, and we all went on a rampage of fake names. Once she'd written them all down, she led us upstairs to "C.C."

"C.C., you have more visitors," said the woman, and she left the room. I saw Jasmine in the corner, whimpering and scared. She stared up at us with big eyes.

"What the heck did you take our friend for, Circe?" I demanded.

"Oh, young lady, you've returned!" the woman beamed. "Ah, yes. Ava Jenson, wasn't it?"

"Doesn't matter, Circe," I said, taking out my sword. "Just stop bothering us. We had enough of you last summer."

But she didn't appear to have heard me. "Girls, you may go over to the spa, I'll take care of the boys—"

"Over our dead bodies," Lola countered. All of the girls stepped forward, weapons raised.

"Oh, really, girls, calm down…yes, a manicure will do, and of course a facial—"

Greg lost it, and he barreled through our wall of girls and kicked Circe in the gut.

A lot of us said, "What the—", but Greg was looking so accomplished that I couldn't help but feel good for him.

"You fool," Circe muttered. When she looked like she was about to cast a spell on Greg, I stepped forward and slashed with my sword just as Greg rolled away and landed next to Jasmine. Of course, I missed, but what else was I supposed to do?

Greg took Jasmine and brought her back to our group. The bad news, though, was that Circe had sent some sort of disarming charm at me, so my sword clattered against the floor on the other side of the room. The others looked like they were about to come to my defense, but suddenly, everyone but Circe and I were frozen in time. They couldn't blink, they couldn't hear me.

"What in the name of Hades did you do?" I demanded. I was mad.

"Don't worry, it's a simple freeze charm. Once we have a little chat, they'll be back to normal," the sorceress said.

"I'd rather you turn them back now," I insisted. "Before I do something really stupid."

"Like what, Eve? Your sword is on the other side of the room, and if you tried to get it, you know I'd jinx you."

I faltered. She had a point; what _could_ I do to her without my sword? That was my only means of both defense and offense, unless you counted my fists and feet. Even if I tried that, she'd curse me anyways. I had no options but to listen and talk.

"What do you want, then?" I demanded.

"For you demigods to disappear, to leave. You pollute my resort with your very presence," she said, a strong hatred in her tone.

I clenched my fists. "That's what we were doing, Circe! We were leaving! You didn't have to take Jasmine," I growled.

"Ah, dear, I don't believe you understood me," said Circe. "I meant disappear in another way. As I said, you pollute my spa."

"I don't think you heard me, Circe," I said, raising my voice. 'WE'RE LEAVING! Now re-animate my friends before I go for my sword."

"But the thing is, Eve Benson, they'd fight back if I made them vanish while they were moving. It is better this way," she said.

I didn't get this. What was wrong with her? Just because we were demigods travelling by her resort, she wanted to kill us. But for some reason, I wasn't fighting back enough. Thalia was right—I _wasn't_ like a normal Ares child. Ares children tried real hard to pulverize everyone. Now would be a good time to channel that. I knew it had to be somewhere in me.

"You know what, Circe?"

"Yes, my dear?" she asked innocently.

"This place is truly beautiful."

She beamed. "Oh, isn't it? We have everything here, don't we?"

Clearly, she'd been distracted. Then, as fast as I could, I ran for my sword and put it at her neck. I knew it wouldn't work anyways, because she was an immortal goddess, but I had to threaten her, right? "Give it up, Circe. We're on a quest, and we intend to finish it. The life of our friend is at stake. I don't want to hurt you, or anyone, but if you don't let us go, you'll have played the last card, and I'll go after you. Just let us go."

"Fine," she muttered, cursing under her breath in Ancient Greek. "I shall."

Slowly, I began backing away, but I was prepared for any trick she was about to play.

She began to wake up Giselle Nissan, but that was the only one she bothered to wake.

"Eve, what happened?" she asked. "What's going on here? Last thing I remember, Greg saved Jasmine, but…" Then, she noticed everyone else frozen, and turned to Circe. "You witch!"

"Sorceress, dear girl," she corrected.

"Whatever," she said, raising her sword. It flew out of her hand and hit the wall next to her. When she tried picking it up, it scooted away from her, like it didn't want to be touched. I ran at Circe and raised my blade, but it flew backward and narrowly missed Louis Miller's nose. I didn't bother going for it, because I knew it would just run away from me anyways.

Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. Now was a good time to prove that I was a daughter of Ares.

I ran at Circe and punched her in the face, which she didn't expect.

"Curse you!" she shouted as she fell to the ground with the force of the hit.

"That's what you get," I said. "I told you that if you played the last card, I'd get you. Did you think I was joking, 'dear'?"

Unfortunately, that was my mistake, and I wouldn't know it until we got out of there.

Giselle smiled at me, clearly pleased. I'd heard that she was a child of Aphrodite, so I was kind of shocked that she liked what I'd done.

"Good work," she said.

"Got to unleash the Ares in me some time, right?" I replied.

Circe was getting up, but before she could stand, I grabbed my sword and slit her arm. Soon, she started bleeding, but the blood wasn't red. It was gold.

"Ichor," said Giselle in amazement. I had to assume that 'Ichor' was the blood of the gods.

At that moment, our friends woke up. I guessed that they'd woken up from their sleep since she was in pain and no longer focusing on keeping them at a standstill.

"_Malediceret vobis, Circe!"_ cried one of the campers. Somehow I knew that was Latin for, "Curse you, Circe!"

Making sure Jasmine was by my side, we ran out of that place as fast as we possibly could. Luckily for us, we weren't carrying turtles this time. I glanced at Greg, and he looked very relieved to not be hiding in a shell.

As soon as we hit the spot that we were at when we'd noticed that Jasmine was gone, we stopped running. I couldn't wait to tell Clarisse about this. I'd punched a goddess in the face and I had cut her arm open—how cool was that for an Ares child?

"T-thanks," Jasmine said quietly.

"No problem, Jasmine. But you should be thanking Lola. She's the one that got the others to come back for you," I said.

"Really?" she asked. "I was beginning to think she hated me."

"She doesn't hate you," I said. "You're just too happy and perky for her taste, that's all. If she hated you, she would have told me that by now. I promise."

"Oh, ok then. I'll go thank her, then," said Jasmine, and she walked over to Lola, who was somewhere in our crowd of demigods.

And this is the part where I paid for saying what I said to Circe, and for doing what I did to Circe.

Soon enough, we came across a large forest. It was the only place we could go through, so we entered. The inside was dark and kind of creepy, but I decided to try and tough it up. I was a daughter of Ares, the war god, and a little forest shouldn't have scared me.

"I can hardly see a thing," said Travis Stoll.

"No kidding," replied Rico Killu. "I don't even know where I'm going."

"Well, if we can't see, how are we supposed to get out, huh?" Rosa said, clearly fed up with this.

The boy called Tyler Heck pulled out his sword to see if the glare from the blade would help, but it hardly did a thing. All he did was touch Lola in the back with it by accident, which resulted in a minor nosebleed and a large amount of poking.

Suddenly, I heard a yelp coming from the back and then a slashing sound, like someone had cut something thick with a sword. From what I could see through the dark and the fog, it was Karen Karr who had done so.

"What's wrong?" asked Annika Roel.

Karen seemed at a loss for words. "I-I'm not really sure. A branch just…grabbed me. I slashed at it with my sword, but…Kristen, was that you?"

Kristen seemed confused. I'd learned not to trust her innocent looks, but this one was sincere. "I have no idea what you are talking about, dear demigod," she said simply.

That left Karen very confused. But soon after that, I heard an, "Ow!" somewhere by me.

"Davie, are you okay?" asked Corry.

"Yeah, I tripped over a branch, that's all," mumbled Davie Songstrom.

A few minutes later, we were still lost in the dark forest, and no one else had been hurt yet.

"This is creeping me out," I said.

"You're not alone," Darius said.

Something was very wrong with these woods. I tried to think: what could be wrong? I mean, there wasn't exactly much we could do about branches sticking out into the path and hurting people. But Karen had said that it grabbed her…

"I don't like this at all," Zachary said.

"Me neither," said Kyle. "The only time I've been through something creepier than this was when some random pedestrian came at me out of nowhere and tried to kill me with his newspaper of doom."

I didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but I had a feeling that it was back when we'd left Circe's place last time and some creepy man had fwapped us with a newspaper and said, "Beat it, kids!"

Then, there were two more screams of horror.

I looked down in front of me to see Elijah Frisco's leg caught in a branch that was curling around his leg. I brought out my sword and lopped off the branch. He got up right after, thanking me. To my far left, I saw Gordon Prowls on the ground, Penelope and Rico Killu trying to cut the branch away from his foot with a dagger. Eventually, they got it off, and Gordon quickly began sprinting to the front of the group.

"What's wrong with this place?" demanded Greg.

"I could blow it up if you want," offered Kristen, who had an evil look on her face.

"Um, never mind," said Greg. "I'd rather not be blown to bits."

"AGH! What the heck?" I heard someone say. I recognized the voice as Field's.

"What is it?" Lola said sharply.

"Tree branch, that's what it is! It's got me!"

I heard a stomp and a small whimper of pain, and I had to guess that Kristen or whoever had stepped on his hand or something.

"That's it!" Field shouted. "Just go on without me, okay?"

None of us had a problem with that, so we kept on going and left him to be strangled by the plant.

"Ahhhhh!" I heard Field yell. "It's got my other foot!

We happily ignored him and kept going.

After gleefully listening to his cries of agony, there was one final scream, and we didn't hear anything else after that.

"I…guys, this is making me feel guilty," Giselle said. "We should have helped him."

We all gave her an 'are-you-out-of-your-mind' look.

"I mean, isn't it all about loving each other and helping each other?" she continued.

"Oh, stop sounding like Aphrodite, Giselle. Just because she's your mom doesn't mean you have to love everyone, too," said Carlos.

"She's right, though," said Annika. "It does feel kind of wrong."

"Oh, not you, too!" Carlos said in an annoyed tone.

"She isn't wrong, Carlos," someone else said. I was fairly certain that it was Rosa's voice.

"Please, girls, forget it—" he started, but then Corry said, "I agree."

"What's with all you Aphrodite kids today?" asked Darius. "You didn't care yesterday when everyone kept hurting him."

"That was different. Now he's in mortal peril," Rosa said.

"He was in mortal peril just coming on this quest with us!" exclaimed another person. "You hate him, too, don't you? You booed him loudest of all, you laughed the hardest when he was being hurt back in the Strawberry Service van."

"Of course I hate him, but this is just wrong!"

After a long argument and a lot of swearing (none of which came from me, by the way, it was mostly Kristen), we agreed to go back and save him. But he wasn't even there.

"Did the tree…take him in?" Greg wondered aloud.

"Take him into what?" Lola demanded. "Inside the tree itself? I doubt it, man."

"No, like, into another part of the forest. A part we didn't see before," he replied.

Deep in the forest, I saw a light turn on. It was a fire.

Everyone else saw it, too. Kristen seemed the most interested in the fire.

"What is it?" asked Davie.

"I don't know, but it looks like we need to find out," I said.

So we headed toward the light, not knowing what we were up against.

Now, when we got there, we didn't expect to see three deranged nymphs in togas chewing on laurel leaves. Obviously, they'd been drinking something or other, because no one was as crazy as this unless they'd done so, except maybe Kristen.

Field was bound up and gagged, tied up to a tree trunk by tree branches and barbed wire. I hadn't been one of the people that agreed to saving him, but no matter how evil he was, you had to pity him. No one deserved to be taken away by nutty tree spirits and tied up against their will.

Louis slapped his hand to his forehead. "You have _got _to be kidding me," he said under his breath.

The crazy nymphs gave us maniacal looks, ones that almost beat out Kristen's…almost. They looked like they were prepared to rip someone to shreds at any moment. Basically, not the kind of people you'd want to meet in a dark forest, especially when you already can't see where you're going.

"What are they?" I asked Greg. I didn't recall anything about creepy looking nymphs wanting to destroy you in any of the myths.

"Maenads," he replied. "They're obsessed with Dionysus. He drove them wild with passion. They'll rip anyone to shreds if they can find them. They're related to nymphs, so that's why they were manipulating the trees. They were waiting for us."

"Crud," I said. "This may be my fault."

"How so? I don't see what you could have done to make this happen."

"When you guys were frozen in time, I was pretty rude to Circe. I also hit her with my sword. I think she might be trying to curse us all for something I did," I explained. He looked puzzled.

"Gods tend to get a little weaker when their blood is spilt," he said. "I don't see how she'd be doing this."

"Never mind, okay?"

Meanwhile, the Maenads were chanting, "Ravage!" over and over again. I was beginning to question whether or not they were related to Kristen in any way.

"Look, please don't ravage us," said Darius. "If you do, that would so not be cool."

"Ravage!"

"No, no ravaging!" he said, his voice raising.

"Ravage!"

"Make it stop!" Darius shrieked in a strangely high and girlish voice, and then he hid behind Kyle, who was shaking with fear almost as much as Darius was.

"Ravage! Ravage! Ravage!"

"_What_ is your _deal?"_ demanded Carlos. "Killing random people just because you can?"

They nodded. "We shall ravage you!"

"Ok, we get it, you like ravaging things," Lola said. "Can you let Field go now?"

"Destroy! Ravage! Mutilate!"

Suddenly, the trees grabbed us all. Many of us screamed, and I have to admit that I was one of them, along with Greg, Kyle, and just about everyone else besides Kristen, who seemed to be enjoying herself. I just hoped that this wasn't what she chose to do to us at Camp Half-Blood next. After all, crazy minds think alike.

Then they gagged us and wrapped barbed wire around us, like they'd done to Field. Part of me wondered if the barbed wire was poisoned, because it hurt way worse than normal barbed wire (and I'd know, having come across it in a field area by Symphony that resulted in a painful shot at the doctor.)

"Let us go!" I managed through the gag.

"We must ravage you!" cried the Maenads.

"We get it!" shouted Zachary. "Now let go of us! We have an important mission! We're trying to save my sister!"

But the Maenads didn't appear to have heard him. They were too busy making the fire bigger and making the trees tighten their grip on us. It was getting so tight I felt like I would choke at any moment.

Next to me, Greg looked at me desperately. If he thought he was going to get a last-minute through-our-gags-and-bindings kiss, he was definitely veering down the path of, "Hi, I'm losing my mind."

"Stop it, you stupid Maenads!" Rosa said, though it was hard to hear through her gag.

Now, if Rosa had realized that insulting them like that would get her in serious danger, I doubt she'd have opened her mouth at all. But, since she had to talk, she was about to pay the price.

The Maenads chewed on their laurel leaves as they released her from her bindings. Rosa looked relieved, and she brought out her spear, but before she could act, the Maenads circled her and began attacking her. I heard screaming, which I didn't like. I didn't like Rosa, but I didn't want her to die.

Luckily, she'd managed to stab one in the heart with her spear, and she limply fell to the ground. So apparently, they were not monsters. Just mortals with some serious issues.

When the other two Maenads saw their friend go to the ground, they stared at Rosa in fear. But they continued chewing on their leaves and then ran at her. Rosa got another one and she fell to the ground next to the other dead Maenad.

"Ravage!" cried the last one.

"I think not!" Rosa exclaimed, stabbing the final one.

"Whoa," I heard Jasmine manage through her bindings.

Rosa cut our branches and barbed wire and gags with her sword, though grudgingly so when she came to Kristen, and later Field.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"No problem," Rosa breathed, panting a bit. "Not every day you get to kill a weirdo, right?" Then she walked over to the others.

Suddenly, I saw a blazing glow behind me. After it had died down, I turned around to see a beautiful woman.

"Who are you?" asked one of the campers.

"I am Tyche, Goddess of Chance and Good Fortune," she said.

"I…that's why I felt like I needed to insult them?" Rosa asked curiously. "You told me to?"

"Yes, dear," replied Tyche. "I knew that they would unbind you if you got to them, my dear. I simply couldn't allow you to be ravaged."

"Um…thanks," said Rosa.

"No worries, dear. Now, I must go. There are others in need of good fortune," said the goddess. We all looked away until the blinding light died away, and Tyche was gone.

"Well, that was…interesting," said Corry.

"If by interesting you mean horrifying, then yes, that was extremely interesting," I mumbled sarcastically.

And so we made our way through the forest and went on from there.

"Rosa, that was so cool how you stabbed it with your spear, and then the other two went after you, and then—," Jasmine began, but Rosa stopped her.

"Yeah, I know, Jasmine. I kind of lived it."

"I know…but seriously, that was awesome! I mean, you saved us! How can I thank you?"

"By leaving me alone?" Rosa mused. But then she said, "You can go bug Field for me, okay?"

"Okie dokie!" Jasmine beamed, and she ran off to some other part of the crowd.

After a while of silence from both me and Lola, Jasmine came up to us.

"Did you know Field's a son of Khione? Isn't she the goddess of snow or something? I wonder if he can make this place turn into a winter wonderland!" she said really fast.

"Slow down, there, chick," said Lola. "I hardly understood a single word you just said."

"Oh, never mind, then," Jasmine replied, running off to go congratulate Rosa some more.

"See, this isn't so bad," I told Lola. "We haven't even been killed yet."

"Yes, because that makes it so much better," she replied drearily. "I so wanted to come."

"Hey, I didn't sign up for it either," I sighed.

Louis fell behind to talk to us.

"Hello," he said.

"Hi," I said, suspicious.

"Um…how are you?"

"Considering we were just attacked by three maniacs, it's not going so well," I muttered. He laughed.

"Want to cut to the chase, Miller?" asked Lola.

"There isn't a chase, I'm just…upset," he said.

"Upset? Why?" I asked.

"McKenna's gone and, well, now we have this stupid quest to complete. I've never had a quest before, I mean, not nearly as many demigods do anymore, but…this isn't the way I pictured my first quest going."

"I didn't exactly imagine my first quest would be as life-threatening as it was, either," I said. "I was almost murdered pretty much right after Argus dropped us off."

"And then you were almost murdered again when I got mad at you," Lola said.

"And with the cave thing," I added.

"And the monsters, Eve. Don't forget the monsters."

"And then we went to Circe's…that wasn't exactly a good day for Greg and Kyle…"

"And then we got thrown into the air by a god and nearly died on impact," Lola remembered.

"And then I had to go down that stupid elevator shaft—"

"Uh, guys? I'm still here," Louis interrupted.

"Right, sorry," I mumbled. "I guess we got sort of carried away."

"'Sorry'? That's interesting."

"What?" I asked. That had confused me.

"You're a child of Ares and you're saying sorry. That's just…not very normal. It's awesome, and I'm not complaining, but Ares kids…they're just not really like that."

"Ugh, don't even _mention_ that. Thalia's mentioned it before and I've thought of it before, too. I don't need to hear any more on how different I am. I'm already a demigod, I really don't need to get even weirder than that," I told him.

"Okay, forget I mentioned it."

He went back to the front of the group, and Lola and I were left with nothing to talk about. She wanted to keep thinking of times when we'd almost been killed, but I really didn't feel like talking about how I went down the elevator shaft six hundred feet.

Instead, I was thinking about what Louis had said. _"You're a child of Ares and you're saying sorry. That's just…not very normal."_ I knew I wasn't normal. I'd spent a little while in that cabin being beat up by Gordon and Sherman and Mark when I first moved in. I'd spent a few days in that cabin before the quest. I was forced to sit at their table for all meals. I knew what they were like, and I knew what I was like. When you compare, you see the big difference. The other Ares kids were strong, tough, rude, mean, and did I mention tough? I was just Eve Benson, the strange Ares kid who didn't want to beat people up, the one who would refuse to do anything bad unless she wasn't being given a second option. I didn't need two other people, Louis and Thalia, telling me that I was different, strange. In fact, I technically had five people telling me that. Apollo had told me that by claiming me and deeming me as nice as an Apollo camper. Greg had told me that by not changing his mind about me. And I had told myself that, because I knew I was different anyways. In fact, there were more people that had told me that I was different. There was Kyle, who'd told me that by sincerely believing that I was as nice as an Apollo child. There were the other Ares campers, constantly hurting everyone while I sat in the background, confused and terrorized. There was Circe, who was challenging my strength. There was Isabelle and Katie, who were sweet, kind, and shy, yet wanted to be friends with an Ares kid, therefore hinting that I was different. And there was everybody else who believed that I had been a daughter of Apollo. Lola, on the other hand, had told me the opposite, by being a child of Hades, tough, agile, smart, yet still wanting to be friends with me, the unnatural one, Eve Beth Benson. So far, I liked what Lola told me way better than what the others had told me. The only thing the others told me was that I was different.

And different wasn't exactly something I wanted to be.

* * *

**Like it? Hate it? Review.**

**So, remember my other dream with Greg and the vampire? Well, this time I had a dream about me and a vampire. Except it was a vampire sea horse O.o Yeah...**

**I like the new My Little Pony now xD Doesn't matter whether or not you like it, but it's cute. And Fluttershy is just the sweetest little thing in the whole wide world :D**

**Anyways...YAY QUEST LOLLLLLLLZ.**

**Wow...I'm becoming as bad as Kristen...but that's not necessarily a bad thing, so, yay! c[:**

**Come back soon! :D But don't expect me to, I need a hiatus after this chappie.**


	9. Zachary Battles A Snake

**School has started, and I am in the advanced math class. Gee, I'm so excited. Because I totally love school, especially math...uh huh...I'm just going to keep telling myself that.**

**In happier news...LET'S GIVE A SHOUT-OUT TO ME! THIS IS THE LONGEST CHAPTER YET! I broke the 5,000 and made it to SIX THOUSAND. 6,421 to be exact. I told one of my teachers from last year who read Eve Benson, Demigod about it today, and she was all, "WOAH O.O"**

**I read PJO too much. I just finished my fourth time through the series. Then I re-read The Demigod Files and The Ultimate Guide to Percy Jackson, and now I'm back on The Lost Hero in the waiting for stupid October 4th when The Son of Neptune comes out. 4 weeks is too far away!**

**Anyway...**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO**

**Claimer: I own everything else**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**Zachary Battles a Snake**

I stayed up that night when we set up camp by the edge of the forest.

We'd been separated by cabins—one set of demigods over here, Athena kids over there, children of Hermes by that big rock in the corner. So, I was stuck with Gordon Prowls, Penelope Killu, and Rico Killu. Gee, what fun.

And the worst part? All of my friends were so far away from my Ares group. I couldn't whisper to Lola, enjoy a quick chat with Greg, I couldn't even call Kyle an idiot from here.

"I can't just sit here!" complained Gordon. "I need to kill some monsters already! We haven't killed anything!"

"What are you talking about? Rosa killed those Maenads," I corrected.

He gave me one of those 'how-dare-you-correct-me' looks and then eyed his dagger, as though he was tempted to run me through with it. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if that really was what he was thinking right now.

"Those were _mortals_, remember? Duh!"

I rolled my eyes. "Still, she killed—"

"Besides, I specifically said, '_I_ need to kill some monsters already!', not '_we_', _doofus._ Normally, I try to refrain from beating up cabin mates, but I may have to reconsider, punk," he said, cutting me off. Part of me was wondering why he had beat me up when I had first met him, if that was his policy. Part of me was wondering why he wasn't working for the Titan army yet. Maybe Field thought him to be too stupidly aggressive? But, unfortunately, that was how the rest of the normal Ares kids worked. _I'm so cool because I can beat people up. Scram, punk._

"I do that already," muttered Rico, wearing a devious grin on his face. "Look out, _sis_."

…You see what I put up with as a child of Ares?

Soon, though, Gordon, Rico, and almost everybody else was asleep, and I couldn't blame them. After being nearly strangled to death by a few mortals from the loony bin, we were beat. As soon as Karen had barely even laid down her head on her pillow, she was out of it.

It was so quiet that I could even hear Rosa whispering, "Thanks, Tyche," and then laying down to sleep. Penelope was mumbling to herself, "You're _awesome_, Penelope. You can beat up those n00b monsters no problem, can't you, Penelope? Heh-heh. _You_ should be leading this quest, not some wimpy son of Athena. Wisdom shmisdom, you've got the brawn, Penelope." Sure, I didn't think 'n00b' and 'shmisdom' were words, but it was better to be sleeping next to her than Rico, who was talking in his sleep saying, "BULLSEYE! BULLSEYE! GOTCHA! HAHA, BOOYAH! BULLSEYE, BULLSEYE!" I wasn't quite positive why he was shouting that. Maybe he was dreaming about archery practice or something. But somehow, unless he was worse than Percy, I doubted that he shouted that every single time he hit the target.

I decided that, since I couldn't sleep, especially not with the Killu twins dreaming about their big, fat egos, I would sit there and think. First, I thought of Percy and the others. Were they okay? I didn't think so. We would've been able to contact them by now if they were. But no. They were lost, and they were gone, but the major problem was that nobody could find out where. Oh, but that's not freaky or anything.

I thought of my other friends at Half-Blood Hill, and what they'd probably be thinking right about now. Isabelle would probably be trying to prevent the others from dreaming about anything bad, but I knew that if he could, Zachary would fight against her power. He'd demand to know where his sister was, and if she was okay.

Katie Gardner had promised that she'd send me some IMs, so she was probably getting prepared for that. But it was getting later and later in the night, and why would she try to talk to me past midnight when she knew Isabelle would be trying to get me to go to sleep? Something told me I wasn't going to get anything from her for a while.

Clarisse would probably be making plans to pulverize all the bad guys. That was just the Clarisse thing to do. I hadn't known her for very long, but I knew her enough to realize that in such a situation, she'd be toughing it up and planning battle strategy, possibly with some Athena kids, because she was the goddess of battle strategy along with wisdom and crafts, but it would definitely be unwillingly. Ares' kids really did not like Athena's children. If they didn't agree with something she wanted to do…I felt bad for them in advance.

The other Stoll brother, Connor, would probably be pranking people and waiting longingly for his brother about now. I couldn't think of much else he'd be doing besides that.

Then my mind wandered simply to Lola. I knew that she didn't know Nico _that _well, but she had very willingly come on the quest, because it meant that they could possibly save him, and the others, of course, but she was mainly in it for Nico. I didn't know McKenna very well, either, but I hadn't very willingly come along. I mean, it was probably because Lola knew Nico better than I did McKenna, and they were half-siblings, but still…I couldn't help but think that maybe I was a bit like a real daughter of Ares after all.

My mind drifted back to Katie. What was taking her? I mean, sure, it was only the first night, but demigods get very anxious for things that they've been told about, unless they've been told about their own certain doom. That's the only case where we're not so antsy about getting to the point.

I changed positions in my sleeping bag and tried to focus on sleep. I tried to focus on Morpheus, the god of dreams, or Hypnos, the god of sleep, I tried thinking of just about anything that might make me tired. I even ventured so far as to imagine being stuck in a rubber room in a straightjacket, bored as heck, because, I mean, come on, who doesn't get a little tired when they're bored? But unfortunately, my tactics didn't work. Couldn't Isabelle lend me a hand or something? I knew that she could make people fall asleep, prevent or give people dreams, and I knew her dad could make entire city sections fall sleep with just one move. She'd made me fall asleep before, and she had given me some pretty weird dreams before, so why wasn't she helping me out now? I needed it with the stupid Killu kids here. How did I ever get sleep back in the Ares cabin? They talked _way_ too loud in their sleep. I seriously hoped that that was not what I did in my sleep.

I sighed. I was the only one still awake, from what I could tell. Lola, who tended to have trouble sleeping, was out of it, and Rosa was clearly asleep. Everyone else, including Greg and Kyle and Zachary, was asleep as well.

But then, a bright shimmer of mist appeared next to me. Fearing it was one of the gods switching out of divine form, I shielded my eyes and looked away, but then I heard a female voice say, "It's just me, silly."

I turned around and moved my arm away from my face. "Katie, you scared me."

She was clearly standing in the Demeter cabin. There were plants everywhere, and the beds were neatly made. The lights were on, but I couldn't see anyone there but her. Maybe she'd ushered them all out, or maybe they were planting trees by the forest or something.

"Sorry," she muttered, shuffling her feet around. I could tell she was blushing. Freaking out a child of Ares wasn't exactly high up on the bucket list.

"So, what are you here for?" I asked.

"How's the quest so far?"

I told her everything, from my dream about Field being evil to the Maenads. Katie groaned.

"Those Maenads get into everyone's business if they can help it. Sometimes they're even the reason that people don't come back from quests," she said. "You're lucky Tyche was at your side."

"No kidding. Field was almost dead by the time we got there," I grumbled.

"It would've been better off that you left him there, though, Eve."

"I know, I agree. But the Aphrodite kids and their 'love everyone' thing…Field can't be trusted, that's all I know. But clearly, they either don't know it or don't care."

"There are other people you can't trust, Eve…" Katie said quietly.

I paused. "What are you talking about? Is there more than one spy?"

Katie looked very troubled. "No, that's not it, exactly…"

"What is it, then?" She was worrying me. I'd never seen her (or anyone, really) act this way before.

She knit her eyebrows. "It's nothing. Forget it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Anyways, Isabelle says that she's giving Field a glimpse of his worst nightmare right now," she said in a much more cheerful tone.

Now, under mortal circumstances, that would probably mean someone getting beat up where it counted. But in this world, it meant something a whole lot more disconcerting. Getting a nightmare from Isabelle is a whole lot worse. Somehow, she can sort of see inside you and pluck out your deepest fears and shove them in your face, even if you don't know them yet. Normally, that would be the job of Phobetor, minor god of nightmares and brother to Morpheus, but I guess it didn't matter much. Morpheus was still the god of dreams regardless.

I grinned. "What is it?"

"Probably something to do with you. Isabelle found out that he likes you."

"Um…ew," I muttered. It was bad enough I had Greg on my case. Now a complete creep, too? Just what I needed. More images to keep me up at night.

"Agreed. But it's better than Kronos or someone like that having a crush on you," Katie said.

"I'm not so sure about that, actually," I admitted. "Field is…Field."

Katie shrugged. "You've got a point, I guess."

In the group of Hephaestus kids, Greg moved around and changed positions. Katie was glaring at him.

"What?" I asked. Not many people really glared at Greg, or at least not from what I'd seen. Greg was a likable guy.

As soon as I said that, she jumped. "Oh, nothing," she murmured. "Just thinking."

But I definitely registered the fact that she was not just thinking. There was something about Greg that she didn't like. What was it? The only thing wrong with him that I could think of was that he was way too desperate for a girl to like him, as he clearly displayed every waking moment of the day. But it wasn't just dislike that I saw in Katie's eyes. It was a look of pure loathing.

"Katie, what's wrong? You don't look too happy," I told her.

She turned back to me. "It's _nothing,_ Eve. I'm being honest with you."

"There's no chance that you're being honest," I defied. "You don't like Greg. Why?"

Katie looked like she could strangle me. "He's—never mind. You wouldn't understand," she said, trying to calm down. "He's your friend, and I don't think I exactly have the right to ruin that."

"Katie, _tell me what's wrong_," I demanded. If there was something so horrible that was hidden from me that it might ruin our friendship, I wanted to be aware.

"I can't," she whispered, tugging on her sleeve. She chewed her lip.

"I'm not sure if you understand, Katie," I grumbled. "I'm a daughter of _Ares_. Just tell me what's wrong or I will make sure Isabelle gives you a nightmare, too."

She faltered. No one, and I seriously mean _no one_, likes it when Isabelle messes with their dreams. For example, when I guessed that Isabelle had given me those dreams about Rosa's past, I'd been pretty ticked. I like my own dreams, thank you.

"He…Eve, I just can't—"

I slashed my sword through the Iris message, and it vanished.

I didn't know why I was being so defensive of Greg right now. Maybe it was just because he was my friend, and nobody messes with my friends. I really didn't know.

I wanted to know what Katie knew, no matter what it took me. If it killed me, I wouldn't care. I'd just be glad to know what Katie's problem was. Or maybe she didn't even have a problem. Maybe she was just a lunatic. But then again, lunacy would sort of be a problem...

Soon after that, I fell asleep.

I saw Isabelle standing in front of a blurry re-depicting of the argument I'd just had with Katie.

"Katie kind of told me…I'm not nearly against him as Katie is, but…Eve, she has her reasons. That's all I can say," she told me.

"Isabelle, what was that about?" I asked. "Katie…she was glaring, she refused to tell—"

"I know, I know," Isabelle said softly. "But you have to trust me on this one. She has her reasons for not liking him…some of them, even I don't understand, but the others make a lot more sense. Like, for example…never mind. I know you want to know, but…right now isn't a good time. You might just kill him in his sleep if I told you now, Eve."

"What could possibly be so bad that—"

"Eve, I need to go. Sleep is important for me, too."

I saw her figure beginning to walk away. In the background, I was yelling at Katie to tell me what she didn't like about Greg.

"WAIT!" I shouted.

Isabelle stopped. "Yes?"

"Give Katie a nightmare for me, okay?"

Isabelle paused. She looked a bit displeased at my request. "I'll contemplate that," she said finally.

Then the dream changed just as I slashed my sword through the Iris Message.

I was expecting a nightmare of some sort. Instead, I got a more toned down version of a nightmare.

I was McKenna again, but this time I wasn't chained to a post. Leslie had me in handcuffs, but I wasn't exactly surprised. This day was probably going to come sooner or later.

Leslie and Drake were showing me everything that was going on around the Titan camp. You'd think it was way better than being stuck to a post for ages, right?

Wrong.

They were showing me their many fighting techniques and torture devices that would've made Kristen beg like a dog. There were _dracaenae _ripping up dummies with orange Camp Half-Blood shirts on. _Empousai_ were practicing baring their fangs together. Laistrygonians were squashing dummies like they were crackers. Demigods were in their own arena, having a sword practice session. I saw a Hyperborean giant sitting down in a corner with a frown on, like he was having a time-out. When you think about it, it wasn't _too_ much different from Camp Half-Blood. But it was definitely the scariest thing I'd ever seen in my life, and trust me, I've seen some pretty scary stuff.

"Soon, this won't just be practicing, brainiac," Leslie said harshly. "This is gonna be a war. And you'll be the second one to die, mark my words."

"Second one to die?" asked McKenna.

"Lord Kronos wants a specific person to die first…you'll know her when you see her. Trust me, she'll have that…aura of soon-to-come death, I'll say," Drake explained.

"Gee," McKenna muttered. "Thanks for telling me."

"You asked," he replied.

Everything was so horrible. Demigods were impaling javelins into practice dummies, _empousai_ were killing the demigods that proved worthless to Kronos' cause. Telkhines were helping to forge more weapons, all of which looked way more deadly than the ones at Camp.

"Stop showing me this," McKenna begged. "Please."

"Would you rather be tied to your silly post?" Leslie laughed.

"Yes!"

"We will, princess, calm down. Jeez, I thought you were the one who was telling us to let you go!"

McKenna groaned. "Please…"

"Nope, don't think I will, sorry," Leslie muttered.

"Please," she begged. "Please…"

Drake looked like he was considering, but Leslie kicked him in the shin. Suddenly, he looked a lot more pleased to be torturing me.

I just stared at the ground. I couldn't watch my surroundings anymore. But even the ground was gruesome. There was monster dust and demigod blood splattered here and there. I winced.

Then, McKenna began pretending to be a good little captive. She just walked along, not complaining, not even faltering when she saw the monsters giving her dirty looks. One monster even gave her the finger, and I was surprised when McKenna did nothing.

But all of a sudden, McKenna kicked Leslie and Drake both in the gut and ran. "Run," she kept saying. "Run."

Yet something was telling me that it was not herself that she was talking to.

"Just run away," McKenna said as she ran past the arena of demigods.

A telkhine gripped her arm, but she shoved him off. "Don't come find me," she prayed. "Just save yourself. Don't risk it."

But just then, as she sprinted past her post that she was always chained to and shouted, "GO!", a hand caught her arm, and they were a lot harder to pull off than a telkhine. I turned around and saw the grinning form of Drake, without his eye patch on. McKenna was so creeped out that she fainted, and the dream ended.

I woke up, McKenna's words echoing in my head.

_Run._

_Run._

_Just run away._

_Don't come find me._

_Just save yourself._

_Don't risk it._

_GO!_

McKenna was more willing to let herself be killed by the end of her one year to live than to let us come and save her, which would be risking our lives.

I was about to think some more on that when Zachary said, "Come on, crew. Let's move out." He had a look of pain on his face, but he was clearly trying to make sure it wasn't too obvious. There was no need to freak out the rest of us. But that was a little too late for me. Either he'd seen what I'd seen, or he'd seen for a second time what Isabelle had warned me about—the thing that had horrified him. And I was beginning to get an idea of what that was.

As we gathered our things, I muttered, "Penelope, you talk in your sleep." I didn't even know why I said it. I guess with the whole ADHD thing, impulse randomly got control of me.

She paused her packing to glare at me. "I ain't the only one, missy." Then she continued to gather all of her belongings.

"I take it you mean your brother?" I said. "He's an interesting talk-sleeper."

Penelope scoffed. "A lot of Ares kids talk in their sleep, punk. We don't know why, we just do. You talk in your sleep more than you think."

I tried to mask my look of horror. "I don't know what you're talking about," I replied. At least it was the truth. But Penelope just kept on packing a whole bunch of weapons and boxing gloves and stuff like that. I wondered how she fit all of that in her bag. More importantly, I wondered how the heck the swords and axes and caltrops didn't _tear_ that thing. I mean…that bag didn't exactly look strong, unless she talked Kristen into getting her to put a charm on it that had it not rip.

"…What kind of things did I say?" I asked. I wanted to make sure I hadn't mentioned anything about McKenna or running away. (Particularly the 'running away' part. I didn't really feel like making a bigger fool of myself in front of my siblings.)

"Something about…gosh, what was the name? Oh, right. Something about Greg," she said simply, like she really didn't care.

_Darn_, I thought. _Now people are gonna go around thinking I like Greg._

But apparently, I had thought aloud.

"How cute," Rico joked. "Little Eve is afraid that word is gonna get out about her little _crush_."

I looked around to make sure Greg hadn't been in earshot of that. Then, when I decided that he couldn't possibly have heard it, I said, "Shut up, Rico. Just because he was mentioned in my dream doesn't mean that I—"

"Oh, defensive, are we?" Gordon said.

"Clarisse wouldn't be talking to me like this, you know. And she's the Ares counselor. She's got, like, mega power over you," I pointed out.

"Pfft, Clarisse? What makes you think we care about what she says? We're not scared of her."

"I may as well send her an Iris Message and tell her you said that," I said, smirking.

"We'd only beat you up if you did that," Penelope said, but I could hear a hint of fear in her voice.

"And Clarisse would beat _you_ up once she heard about it, anyways."

"Your point is? We're used to that, punk," Gordon muttered.

"Hey," a new voice said. "Lay off."

I turned around, and to my relief, Lola was standing there with her sword.

Rico grumbled. "What do you want, Ruman?"

"That's _Miss_ Ruman to you, Killu. And I want you to leave her alone. I'm kind of the daughter of Hades, so you know where that leads," Lola snapped. "Come on, Eve."

She walked back to her stuff and continued putting things away.

"Real mature," Penelope groaned. "Walking away."

"That's what one is supposed to do when being bullied," I said. "And you guys…yeah, something tells me you've had a lot of kids walk away from you."

Penelope didn't quite get it at first, but then when she'd figured out what I said, she mumbled, "Oh, shut up, Benson."

I rolled my eyes, picked up my bag, and went over to Lola.

"Morning," I said. "Those Ares kids are so—"

"Pig-headed?" Lola offered.

"Well, yes, but I was more veering towards…_senseless to the core_," I corrected. "But the pig thing makes sense."

"Why?" Lola asked. "I said it just because it sounded about right."

"Well, Ares' sacred animal is a boar, and that pretty much just means 'pig', so…yeah."

Lola nodded and said, "Oh, right. Slow on the uptake this morning, I guess."

"You better not be when we leave this place," I said. "That world's full of monsters."

Lola nodded again and picked up her bag. "Oh, you know it. And I am ready." She clutched her sword like it was the coolest sword in the whole world. I didn't get how she could be so ready for a monster attack. It hadn't even been a year since she'd learned that she was a demigod, yet she acted like she'd known it her whole life. The only thing she'd known her whole life was that she was scared of Aetheopian drakons, and that she stunk at Calculus.

"Remember," I whispered. "Some of those monsters are just Ares kids in disguise. But you can kill them, too. No one will care."

"Don't dilly dally," Zachary called. "If we're going to save my sister, we need to get there sooner than later."

Everyone groaned and finished packing up their things.

"Zachary!" Kristen said eagerly.

He groaned and tried to bite back whatever snide comment he had in mind. "Y-yes, Kristen?" he asked with forced politeness.

"If—when we get to your sister, can I kill all the bad guys with my cannon?" she asked. She pointed inside her bag happily, like she'd somehow managed to fit it in there.

"Do you have the cannonballs?"

"Yep!" Kristen cheered.

"No," Zachary said firmly. "Besides, if I was to let you use that cannon of yours, the cannonballs would need to be made of celestial bronze."

"But they are!"

"I'm not going to let—wait, what? How'd you manage that?"

"I dunno. I'm a daughter of Hecate!" Just to prove it, she magically made Zachary's glasses twenty sizes too big and turned his hair into licorice.

"UGH! Kristen!" Zachary shouted. He also let out a few profanities that I won't repeat.

"Change it back!" Annika pleaded.

"HAHAHA!" Kristen said maniacally.

"Please!" Zachary muttered.

I couldn't help but stifle a laugh. This _was_ pretty priceless. For once, I had to laugh at something Kristen did.

"Kristen, REALLY!" argued Zachary. "Stop that magic stuff!"

"Fine," she groaned. With a flick of her wrist, Zachary's hair was back to normal, but his glasses were still falling so low she touched his chest.

"Kristen?" he chided. "Keep going."

"Awww, why?" she pouted.

He glared daggers at her. "Just do it. Please."

"Okay, okay, FINE." His glasses went back to normal size.

"Thank you," Zachary grumbled in exasperation. "Okay, everyone ready?"

Everyone said, "Yes" except for Jasmine, who was stuffing a teddy bear into her small suitcase hurriedly so that no one would see. She also still had a couple of other things spread out on the ground in front of her. Zachary noticed and bent down to help her. Jasmine blushed and let him put her things away for her.

"Ready now?" Zachary asked softly.

"Y-yeah," Jasmine whispered.

So we began to move forward, straight to our doom.

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "Doom? Why are they walking to their doom? Does it have to do with the title of this chapter?" Well, um…if you're asking that last question, you're kind of right. It does have to do with the chapter title.

Field fell back to talk to me. Lola was up in front with Zachary and Kyle, and Greg, for once, wasn't nearby me either. Rosa was way in the back, too. The only people around me were my siblings, Elijah Frisco, and some other people like Louis and Karen and Giselle, so I was kind of stuck.

Looking away from him, I muttered, "You might want to back off, punk. I know perfectly well what you're up to."

"I'm not here as a minion of Kronos, if that's what you're thinking. I'm on this quest because I've got to be here."

"Yeah, right. And I'm not really a child of Ares. I'm secretly a daughter of Aphrodite."

"Eve, I'm being honest. I don't care about Kronos. They're making me do it," he pleaded. He sounded sincere, but no way was I about to trust this guy. Most Ares kids were pretty stupid. But, luckily and unluckily, I wasn't like most Ares kids, as we've established. So I wasn't going to be so thick.

"How about this. I want you to deliver a message for me," I offered.

"Sure, anything," he said.

"Tell Drake and Leslie that I hate them. Tell Kronos' monsters to let McKenna go. Tell McKenna that we're coming for her. And tell yourself that I'm not buying your innocent act, so you can stop trying to play it out."

"Eve—"

"You said you'd do anything, Field. Just _do it_, and go bug some other person who's gullible enough to believe you."

He didn't say anything after that, and I allowed the others to pass me until I was in the back of the group. Fortunately and unfortunately, Rosa was still back there.

I must have been scowling, because Rosa noticed my expression. "Field?" she guessed.

"Afraid so," I said. "He kept trying to tell me that he's not a spy for Kronos."

"Oh, he tries to tell everyone that. Very few people ever believe him." She was looking at her spear like she wanted to pulverize Field with it. I looked at my sword that pretended it was a dagger. It could definitely come in handy one day with Field around, I knew that much.

"Hey, Rosa?" I asked.

"What?"

"How come you've been so nice to me lately? I kind of thought you hated me."

"I do hate you. Don't worry, nothing is going to change that," she assured me.

"Then why do you keep acting concerned and kind?"

"I'm not completely a bad person. But I still don't like you, Benson."

And her calling me by my last name just like old times is what made me feel better about the situation. Maybe not much _had_ really changed.

We reached a lake, or a river, or whatever it was. It may have been the ocean. All I know is that you should ask Percy if you want to know what it was. But in any case, we reached a stretch of water. We thought we were perfectly safe. Yeah, let's just see how long that lasts when you're a demigod.

"We're going to need boats," Corry indicated. "There's no way we're going to get anywhere without them."

Lola turned to Kristen. "Any chance you could use your powers for good this time?"

Kristen gasped. "But that would be…responsible!"

"Yeah," Lola muttered, "exactly."

Zachary looked at her desperately. "Please?"

"I don't answer to 'please'," Kristen said defiantly.

I stepped forward and pulled out a drachma. "Deal?"

"I can't be bought," she said simply.

I pulled out a second one, and then a third. I figured I'd be broke by the end of this quest. "Kristen, come on."

She stared at the drachma like she really wanted them, but then realized that, no matter if she was getting money out of it, she'd be acting responsible, so she refused to take it. She folded her arms and closed her eyes, turning around. She wasn't having any part of this. Then she snapped her fingers and my drachma turned into snails. I dropped them quickly and glared at her, not that she could see me anyway. I watched my drachma slowly making their way away from us.

"Look," I told her. "The sooner we get this quest finished, the sooner we get back to Camp Half-Blood. And do you know what getting back to Camp Half-Blood means?"

Kristen opened her eyes and pondered that for a minute. "Wreaking havoc on innocent demigods?" she guessed.

"Yep," I replied.

She grumbled for a moment, but then turned the three drachma-snails into large rowboats instead.

We separated ourselves into random groups. I was with Lola, Greg, Kyle, Rosa, Jasmine, Giselle, Darius, Gordon, Rico, and Penelope. Everyone else was piled into a boat with Zachary. Since we didn't end up needing the third boat, Kristen turned it back into a drachma and gave it back to me, but she only did it because the rest of us (not including the other three Ares idiots) kept complaining to her about it and she finally gave in to peer pressure. She turned four seashells that we found along the shore into oars for the boats.

So we started to row our way across the water.

It was peaceful for a while. No one was arguing, hardly anyone was even really talking. But of course, when you're like us, the good things in life don't last long. They don't last long at all.

"I think we're making good time," Zachary shouted over the wind. "We should be able to save McKenna soon enough."

But at that moment, a giant green sea serpent rose out of the water.

It had green scales covering its entire body and piercing yellow eyes. It had sea slime all over it and a forked tongue that looked about ready to taste us all.

"Great!" Travis Stoll shouted, "Exactly what we needed."

"Are you kidding, Travis?" Karen insisted.

"I was being sarcastic!"

"Um…I knew that!" Karen said.

"And to think that you're a child of Athena," Carlos said.

"Tsk tsk," Travis sighed. "You really need to get a whiff of sarcasm, my friend."

"I'm ignoring that this conversation ever took place!" Karen said angrily. "Anyway, how do we kill that thing?"

The serpent hissed, its fangs gleaming. Storm clouds whirled overhead. It was beginning to rain, and the water was churning. This wasn't quite what I consider fun. Compared to this, finding out that my school had been turned into an orphanage seemed like a walk in the park.

"I don't know!" Zachary shouted. He raised his sword, and the monster backed off.

"It hates your blade!" Giselle cried.

"Should we get our swords out, too?" Field asked. Nobody answered his question.

Zachary stood up on the edge of his boat while a few other people held down the other side, trying to balance it out. He raised his sword as high as possible. The snake hissed and backed off some more.

"I don't see how we can kill it when it keeps running away from our swords!" Darius complained.

The snake came closer to our boat and hissed at him. Its fangs were sharper than our weapons, I figured that much.

"Should we perhaps refrain from using the word KILL?" Penelope suggested irritably.

"That would get us out of trouble, I think!" Kristen agreed.

"Oh my gods, Kristen just agreed with someone," I heard Annika say.

"Do you want licorice hair, girl?" Kristen asked.

"Not really."

"Then shush."

"The prophecy is coming true!" Zachary shouted.

"Zachary!" I shouted. "What did that prophecy say?"

He sighed, then recited the prophecy:

"_A group of fourteen and nine_

_Shall go forth and seek a treasure divine,_

_All shall know what they are fighting for,_

_For the enemies have opened a door,_

_Trouble great shall come upon you,_

_To a great hero has it also happened to,_

_There will be many a death, that is for sure,_

_But death by one's worst enemy shall one endure."_

That didn't sound good at all. I already understood a little bit of it—the group of fourteen and nine was us, because there were fourteen boys and nine girls here. I guess the treasure was McKenna, and she would be divine in Zachary's eyes because she was his sister. The door that the enemies opened had to be the dreams they'd been sending us. But I didn't get the rest of it, nor did I want any of it to happen. Trouble great? Lots of deaths? That was probably number one on the list of ways to freak out a half-blood.

Suddenly, Zachary dove into the sea with his sword.

"Are you insane?" Rosa demanded. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I've got a plan!" Zachary told her. "Trust me!"

I wasn't exactly sure I trusted whatever plan he had in mind, but we didn't have much of a choice.

Zachary plunged deeper into the water.

The snake didn't see him coming, so when Zachary appeared on its back with his sword, he was pretty freaked out. It slashed around, trying to shake Zachary off, but he had a grip of steel despite the slime on the monster. I wondered how hard it would be to wrestle with that thing. But all I really cared about at the moment was that, unfortunately, he couldn't seem to stab his sword into a chink between the scales. Fortunately, his plan didn't require that.

Zachary jumped on to its scaly head, and the snake moved his neck around to try to see him. It was straining its neck so far that part of it was exposed.

"Kyle, shoot it with an arrow!" Zachary commanded.

Kyle, actually being smart for once, took out a bow and arrow and tried to get good aim. Then, at the right moment, he shot it, and the monster disintegrated. Zachary fell into the ocean with a loud, "HEEEELP!"

Corry, the most unlikely of people to be saving Zachary (I recalled Leslie saying in one of my dreams that they couldn't stand each other), jumped into the icy water and waded towards him. Something told me that he was only doing it for McKenna's sake, but at least he was saving our quest leader, right?

He came back to the boat with a limp Zachary Smith in his arms. Corry coughed up a bit of water and lay down to rest for a while. The cold water must have drained him out. But Zachary wasn't moving. Even from another boat, I could tell.

Louis pressed down on Zachary's chest, and a whole bunch of water came out. He spluttered and coughed.

"Dead?" he mumbled.

"Yep," Louis responded. "The snake's dead."

"Good," he said, starting to get up.

"Um, Zachary?" Annika asked quietly.

"Yes?"

"You said that the prophecy was coming true…how? Which line came true because of the snake?"

Zachary sighed. "_To a great hero has it also happened to._ You know the story of Perseus and Andromeda?"

Most of us nodded. We were required to learn about Greek mythology at camp, and this was one of the basic stories. Poseidon had gotten upset with Andromeda's mother for claiming that she was prettier than all of the sea nymphs, so he chained Andromeda to a rock and had a sea monster come to kill her. But Perseus, son of Zeus, just happened to come by with Pegasus the flying wonder-horse and killed the monster, freeing Andromeda. If I could remember correctly, Perseus and Andromeda got married afterward.

"Please tell me that this isn't the same exact monster," Carlos complained.

"It shouldn't be," Zachary said, "because it wasn't just one of the normal monsters that come back. It was just a sea serpent. But I can't really say. The problem is, though, why would it come after us? Simply because there's a lot of demigods? Sure, monsters tend to do that. But I think…I think Poseidon's mad again. He had to have sent it here. It wouldn't just pop up like that. As I said, it's not one of the immortal monsters that come back every time they get killed. It's just a stupid snake. It probably wouldn't even know what a demigod is. It just knows that it hates swords. And yet…_why_ would Poseidon be mad at us? It's not like we did anything to offend him, at least not on purpose."

Lola looked really uncomfortable. For a minute, I had to wonder what she knew that she was hiding from me.

"Who knows?" Field said. "Let's just go."

And for once, considering we didn't really feel like waiting for more sea monsters to attack us, we listened to him for once, and we started to row our boats to wherever it took us next.

* * *

**ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT, GENTLY OWN THE STREAM. MERRILY MERRILY MERRILY MERRILY LIFE IS BUT A DREAM. If you mean a horrible demigod dream, then yes.**

**For those of you who have read the trailer, you'll know why Katie hates Greg. But HEYHEYHEYHEYHEYHEY, for those of you who HAVEN'T read the trailer, DO NOT read it just so you can know what happens. I'll get to it in time. In the meantime...I'll be thinking of more things to do to poor Eve and friends on this journey as they fight for their puny demigod livesies.**

**What does the prophecy mean? Who will die? You'll have to find out, bro. You'll have to find out. That's something the trailer doesn't reveal, so HA. You'll never be able to know anyway.**

**For you Mormons out there, you're AWESOME. To you non-Mormons out there, you're AWESOME too. But for you Mormons (hey homies!), I have a request: WATCH THE SERIES, "LIKEN THE SCRIPTURES". It is PWNSOME. Especially episode two, the thing with Ammon and King Lamoni...I lurves it. There's this awesome dude named Moron who's not actually in the scriptures but they made him up. (It pronounced Muh-Roan, not how you'd normally pronounce More-On.)**

**LATER PEEPS!**


	10. Gods and Meliads and IrisMessages, Oh My

**Hi guys. Excited? I am. Longest chapter ever...again. 9,021 words long and 21 pages. WOO!**

**I actually don't have much to say this time except for that everyone here needs to check out Liken the Scriptures. Go to for information. (If that doesn't show up, because I know this place hates links, just send me a PM and I'll see if it'll work there.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.**

**Claimer: I own everything else but Kristen, who owns her crazy little self and if I denied it I'd be turned into a daisy for two years.**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

**Gods and Meliads and Iris Messages, Oh My**

As soon as we hit the shore, I fell to the ground and went to sleep.

And you know what?

You guessed it. More dumb, stupid, evil demigod dreams. Sometimes I really hate the demigod life.

This time, I could actually see McKenna, rather than see everything from her eyes, in her point of view. She was beaten up, bruised, slashed, cut. And she was in some sort of a demigod jail cell. Bars for windows, a door that didn't look it had been opened or even unlocked for about fifty years, chains in the corner as though they were ready to be used against McKenna, and a chain closed around her leg that was stuck to the wall. She didn't look like she'd eaten anything for days. I didn't see any food in the cell, either. I concluded that this was her punishment for almost escaping their clutches—probable death. Greg would be creeped out considering that that just happened to be his nickname for Lola: Probable Death.

McKenna's eyes were bloodshot, like she was slowly losing her mind and having sleep deprivation problems. Her hair was a mess. She had dirt all over her. I really hoped Zachary wasn't seeing this, too. I wasn't sure what he'd prefer: seeing McKenna locked up like this, or seeing whatever he had already been seeing once again. He'd probably prefer this.

"Forget it, McKenna…they're not coming. Whatever they told you, they were lying. They always do, you know that, don't you, McKenna?" she was saying to herself. At first I thought she was going crazy. But then I realized what she was really doing. She was giving up hope of us coming altogether. She wasn't just having doubts anymore. McKenna was seriously trying to give up. I knew that Leslie and Drake had said that we were coming, but did she really want to defy them so bad that she was acting like she'd never see us again? That's what I call desperate.

"McKenna…" she pleaded with herself, like she was fighting herself on the inside. "The first group went missing. Remember? Percy and Annabeth…and Nico, and Katie…they're all missing. You overheard that Iris Message that Field sent to Drake a long time ago…No, I really don't care that you didn't know that is was Field then…Oh, go away, ADHD…Just…just… look, okay? No one's coming. You're a goner. Kiss Corry and Zachary and your life goodbye. Even if they do come, they'll be killed."

Something in there got my attention in particular, though. McKenna had said that Katie was missing. I also remembered when I got to camp that Isabelle was listing who was lost. Katie was one of them. But she was at camp, wasn't she? I'd seen her, and I'd even talked to her. She'd sent me an Iris Message. I wasn't going to forget our argument for a long time to come.

I wanted to wake up, I wanted to stop seeing poor McKenna like this. I wanted to send an Iris Message to Katie and ask her what was going on. She was beginning to confuse me. She didn't like Greg. In fact, she seemed to really hate him. And she had definitely been part of the group that had left to find McKenna the first time. I'd gotten enough evidence of that. Either she had an identical twin that no one knew about or she'd made it out alive. I was leaning on the second option.

But the dream just continued.

Drake and Leslie never came. But the monsters sure did. There was one of almost everything. One hellhound, one _dracaena, _one _empousa_, one telkhine—there were a lot of other monsters there, too, but I don't feel like mentioning every single one of them. Luckily, by the way, the room was tall, so that the Laistrygonian could fit.

"Look what we've got here," cooed the _empousa_. "A demigod with no hope of escaping. How cute."

McKenna rolled her eyes. "You say that every time you guys come in here, Eliza. Just go away."

Eliza the _empousa_ grinned. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Darn," McKenna said under her breath. Then, in a louder voice, she said, "I've been stuck in here with no food since I tried to leave, almost two whole days ago. I just want some privacy, alright?"

The hellhound barked loudly, as if to say, "I don't think so, chew-toy."

The snake woman hissed. "I don't ssssee why we should leave you alone, my ssssweet. That issssn't the nature of the ssssnake."

McKenna groaned. "I'd really appreciate it if you left."

The _dracaena_ hissed again. "Ssssilence, hero."

"There you go again. You called me a hero yesterday, too. I remember. Why?"

The _dracaena_ raised her weapon. "All demigodssss are called heroessss, hero." But she looked a bit uneasy, like she was lying. Normally, monsters didn't get like that. I wondered what her problem was.

McKenna wasn't fooled, either. But she let it slide anyway.

She let out a sigh. "In the name of everything that is good and holy, just leave me alone, okay? Please?"

The monsters rolled their eyes (eye, in the case of a Cyclops) and left the room.

As soon as she knew they were gone, McKenna sobbed. I probably sat there watching her sob for a half hour before the dream shifted.

There was a small little boy with brown hair, the same shade as mine, and strange eyes: one was purplish-bluish, sort of like indigo, and the other was plain brown. He was sitting against an old, chipped brick wall in an alley way, across from a dumpster that smelled so bad even when it wasn't open that I didn't want to know how it smelled when it _was_ open. He looked like he had braces. He wasn't very old, about nine at the most. The boy looked very sad, like he'd just lost someone he loved. He was holding a wooden stake, probably part of an old broken fence, as though he was going to use it to kill a vampire or something. He pulled a small photo out of his pocket, and it was a picture of him as a younger boy about five years old and someone who had to be his mother. In fact, she looked a lot like my mother, Lily. That was kind of creepy. But I brushed it off and paid attention to the dream instead.

There was a large noise from the dumpster, and a few bangs on the sides of it like there was someone locked inside. It caught the boy by surprise, and he yelped and hid behind a trash can not far down the alley. But he came out quickly when he heard, "Get me out of here! Help!"

"H-hello?" he asked.

"Yeah, hi, we can talk later, just get me out of here, genius!" the person commanded. It was definitely a girl's voice, and it sounded oddly familiar. Hesitantly, the boy fished a pick out of his pocket and unlocked the dumpster. He opened it, and a horrid smell like no other exploded out of it like a volcano. A young girl about twelve years old crawled out and flopped onto the ground, gasping for fresh air (or, air as fresh as it could get now the stink had been unleashed). She had long, dark brown hair that was almost black, bright blue eyes that were filled with terror, a tattered pink shirt and jeans that were so ripped up that she was hardly wearing pants at all because of how much leg I could see. Thank goodness, her underwear was hidden. There was a rose in her hair that was wilting, probably because of that awful smell. She wasn't holding a spear, but I didn't need to see it to know who she was. I'd already figured it out by how she looked. It didn't matter that her eyes weren't the same color as her hair, like they normally were. I had learned just a while ago that her eyes could change because of her mother.

"Who are you?" the boy demanded, inching towards the trash can again.

"Rosa," the girl breathed. "Have you seen my friend Simon anywhere around, by any chance?"

"What does he look like?"

"Red hair, freckles, silver glasses. He was wearing a red shirt last I saw him."

The boy nodded. "I think I saw him earlier. He said he was looking for you, I think."

"Think? Great," she grumbled. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Timmothy," he whispered quietly. "Timmothy Dowell."

Rosa smiled. "Well, thanks for everything, Tim…later." Then she ran off to find Simon.

Timmothy was left looking uncomfortable and sad, yet at the same time a bit mystified, probably that a pretty girl had called him Tim. Then the dream shifted again.

It was dark, damp, and dank. I could hardly see a thing. It was just complete darkness. I thought I saw maybe the outline of a chasm or something, and that was it. But wait…a _chasm?_ Last time I'd seen a chasm…oh, gee.

Sure enough, just to prove that my mind was heading in the right direction, I heard _that voice._

_Hello again, little twit_, he said, his voice scratchy like iron against a rock.

I groaned. "Look, Kronos, I'm not interested. Go bug Field or something."

_Oh, but why would I do that, godling, when I am having so much fun torturing you?_

"Maybe because I'm asking politely? I'm trying to be nice about this, man. Okay?" I warned him. Rule #1 For Demigods: Never insult a child of Ares unless you are attempting to commit potential suicide. That rule may not have applied too much to gods and Titans, but it was still a pretty fair warning.

_Hm_, he pondered. _A child of Ares saying 'please'. How—_

"Weird? Yeah, I know, okay? I've been told. Believe me, I have been told."

_Told by whom, dim-witted one?_

"Just about everybody I know. I didn't really want to add a Titan to the list, but clearly, you don't care," I spat.

_You would not be treated as so, should you join our army, demigod. Yield, _he commanded.

"Oh, don't even go there, bud. Those Greeks were right in naming you the Crooked One. You're darn crooked," I expounded. It was probably the most stupid thing I'd ever done, practically challenging a Titan. No, scratch the 'probably'. It _was_ the most pathetic and life-threatening choice I'd ever made.

_You dare—_

"Of course I dare, dunderhead. Child of Ares, remember? Yeah, that hasn't changed in the last three minutes, believe it or not. Sorry to disappoint you."

_Your sarcasm and rudeness does not please me, daughter of the war god. It will serve you ill-will one day, mark my words. If you do not learn your lesson soon, it will lead to the biggest downfall in your entire life._

Kronos' warning scared me. Kronos in general always scared me, whenever he appeared in my dreams, but this was much more serious.

"Kronos," I said tersely. "I don't care about you, or your cause, or the people in your cause, or your stupid warning. Lay off."

Kronos' gravelly voice snarled. _Then you have just set in stone the death of your petty little _friend_, Benson. _Then he stopped talking to me. Instead, he seemed to be talking to someone who wasn't there. _Beware the knife,_ he said to no one. _Beware the knife that ends your life._

"STOP!" shouted a strangely familiar voice.

The dream shattered like someone had hit it with a baseball or something. In its place was a forest area, and in it was Isabelle Slate.

I sighed with relief. "Thank goodness, Isabelle. Kronos was torturing me."

She had a grim expression on her face. "I know. He does that often," she said. Then she knit her eyebrows. "Eve?"

I hesitated. "Yes?"

"I didn't mean for you to see any of that, I swear. I let you see McKenna, because I thought that might be useful when you get there. She's no longer chained to her post. They've stuck her in some sort of dungeon cell. But then when it changed to Kronos…I knew I had to stop it, but I couldn't. Something…something wasn't _letting_ me. I was trying with all my might, honest. But…I think my dad was stopping me from changing your dream," she said in a frustrated and sorrowful voice.

"Your dad? But why would he do that?"

"My dad is Morpheus, Eve. Do you know what Morpheus did in the last Titan war?"

I thought about that. I didn't know too much about the last Titan war, because nobody would tell me. I just knew that lots of people died on both sides of the battle, Percy, Annabeth, their satyr friend Grover, and a couple of random dudes named Luke Castellan and Ethan Nakamura saved the day, and then Percy and Annabeth started dating. I came to Camp the year after, and not many people liked to talk about it, especially the deaths. I'm still surprised that, when I met Katie, she had even told me that the former pegasus teacher had died in battle the year before. That was why the Aphrodite cabin had a new leader: some snotrag named Drew (I know that's a boy's name, but Drew is a girl, no joke.) Katie hadn't told me this, but I had learned elsewhere that the former pegasus instructor, Silena Beauregard, had only died because she was trying to redeem herself for being the secret spy for Kronos. She'd only become his spy, of course, to save her boyfriend's life, but when he was killed anyway, she had looked for a way to be with him again and all the meanwhile save the camp, and she did that by impersonating Clarisse and attacking a drakon (not an Aetheopian one, by the way, it was a different kind), but it had unfortunately led to her end.

I shook my head. "No, I don't know."

Isabelle sighed. "He sided with Kronos. He sided with Kronos and helped to almost destroy New York and the whole world."

I made a confused face. "But he's a god! The gods hate the Titans!"

"Yes, but the minor gods tend to feel forgotten and hated, so they side with whoever will give them more power. Morpheus and Hecate and a few others decided to join Kronos instead."

I almost gasped. "Your dad…?"

She nodded gravely. "Yeah, my dad…bad. And he's the god of dreams, of course, so it could easily have been him helping Kronos to stop his own daughter. You'd think gods would listen to their kids. But some of them just don't care."

I could relate. I hadn't thought my dad cared enough about me to claim me, so I'd pretty much hated him for a while. At that point, though, I didn't know who my dad actually was, so it was kind of hard to complain to no god in particular.

"Isabelle? You said it switched right to Kronos after the McKenna dream."

"It did, Eve. I was watching your dreams."

"Not closely enough, then. I've found another demigod, and he's not at Camp, I just…know. I can feel it, like there's some connection between us that lets me know where he is and how he's doing," I explained.

"Eve, that's kind of unusual…" she whispered nervously.

"Should I be concerned?"

"No, it can happen. For example, Nico knows whenever someone is dead or whenever someone is still alive, because he's a son of Hades. Maybe this kid is your sibling or something. Sometimes that happens to demigods."

"Ok, that makes me feel better. But still…now we have another demigod to search for."

Isabelle bit her lip. "You're not exactly the only one who's found a new demigod, Eve…"

She pulled a young girl into view. Her short blonde hair was wavy, and her eyes were black. Her eyes had a sheer look of annoyance in them, no matter how much she looked like she was trying to force a smile so as to not look rude. Her shirt was as blue as the ocean, yet it was a lot dirtier than the ocean looked like it was. It had clearly once been as blue as sea, but she must've been one of those demigods that was on the run, because it was so dirty it almost looked like the color of barf rather than blue. She had her arms folded in annoyance. The girl was probably about twelve or thirteen, maybe even eleven. I couldn't tell.

"She won't talk to me much, but she did tell me her name," Isabelle told me. "She says her name is Sacramento. Sacramento Zeez."

"By the way, whoever you are, I have no idea where the 'Zeez' thing came from, all I know is my dad must've had a pretty rough time at school with that name," Sacramento commented.

Isabelle groaned. "We've been over this. Your dad is a god. So is mine. So is Eve's. We're all demigods. You'll meet a lot of them when we get back to Camp Half-Blood."

"What was he, the god of sleep or something? The 'Zeez' thing makes it sound like that," Sacramento said irritably.

"Actually, the god of dreams. Your dad is Morpheus. We're half-sisters, Sacramento."

"WHAT?" Sacramento demanded.

"I'm with her!" I said. "WHAT?"

"About that…when I found her, there was a glowing sign over her head. It was the symbol of Morpheus. I witnessed her being claimed."

"Claimed?" Sacramento questioned. "You make it sound like we're toys, Isabelle."

I couldn't help but think of Rosa when she said that, because I remembered in a dream once she'd said almost exactly that to her dad before he was snatched.

"More or less," Isabelle murmured to herself.

"WHAT?" Sacramento exclaimed again.

Isabelle ignored her. "Anyways, Eve, in a while I'm taking her back to the camp. Can you stay safe for me while I do that? I'll be too busy to protect you from any bad dreams."

I rolled my eyes. "I'll be _fine_, Isabelle. You can count on me. But why are you gonna wait to take her back? Take her back to Half-Blood Hill now. There's no need to wait a while."

"Because I plan on doing something that could potentially save the camp, okay? I've got this. And Sacramento, you promised you wouldn't tell anyone of the plan if I won a game of Rock Paper Scissors," Isabelle explained. There was an edge to her voice, like she really couldn't have anyone knowing about what she had to do. Then she put out her fist.

"Oh, you're on," Sacramento said happily. I watched Sacramento win the game, much to Isabelle's dismay and the young demigod's pleasure, and the dream ended.

I didn't wake up.

I was used to waking up after one of my creepy demigod dreams came to a close, but this time I just stayed asleep. Everything was black.

Now, most people are probably used to that. A dreamless sleep. Yeah, a dreamless sleep is what every demigod wishes for but never gets. I was completely surprised to be free of a dream, even just for a little while.

So, with what consciousness I could muster while I was asleep, I sat there and thought about nothing and everything.

Kronos had called me Benson, just like Rosa did. Couldn't somebody call me Eve? I'd even be happy with being called Ella or Ava or Eva, all of which had been some of the things Rosa used to call me. I might even prefer…nah, never mind. I would never prefer my middle name. Forget it.

He'd also said, _Beware the knife. Beware the knife that ends your life._ He hadn't been talking to me, I knew that much. So who was he talking to? If he was talking about Lola, or Greg, or Kyle, I was going to kill him for killing one of my friends.

What had Isabelle said about the boy? Oh, right. She thought maybe he was my sibling. Well, I darn hoped so. He didn't seem like one of the normal Ares kids. And if I was right, I wouldn't be alone anymore.

I was starting to think about McKenna when I woke up to Lola shouting in my ear, "HEY, EVE!"

"What?" I mumbled groggily.

"Dude, I've shouted at you five times! We're about to leave, Eve. I've already re-packed your things. Let's go," she commanded, like she was the one in charge of the quest and not Zachary.

"Can I be given a minute? I just woke up, man."

Lola looked like she was considering. "Oh, fine. We'll be up by that huge tree, okay? We'll wait for you there." Then she left to join the rest of the group. Zachary asked why they were leaving me behind, and then when she explained, he nodded his head and they went forward.

Then, when I knew they were too far away to see me, I pulled out a drachma and tossed it into some mist from the sea (apparently we'd camped out there at the shore. I had fallen asleep as soon as I touched ground.)

"O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering," I said, because I think that was what you were supposed to say when starting up an Iris Message. Then, when I figured it had worked, I said, "Katie Gardner, Camp Half-Blood."

Katie appeared in the shimmering sea mist, practicing archery with someone who was clearly one of her siblings, because his entire right arm was wrapped in some vine thing and the wristband of his watch was woven completely out of grass. It must've been some pretty strong grass. He was wearing a brown sweatband thingy and clothes that you might find if you went back in time to Bible times.

When Katie saw me, she lowered her bow. "Eve?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," I clarified. "And I have a question."

"Eve, if it's about Greg—"

"No," I said quickly. I wasn't going to get into that again. "It's about something else."

She sighed. "Yes, Eve?"

"Promise me you'll be an open book about this."

Katie made a small sound, probably a groan that she hadn't meant to have come out, and replied softly, "It depends on what it is. But fine, if it's something I'm fine with talking about, I'll answer you honestly."

"When I first got to Camp Half-Blood this summer, Isabelle said you were missing. Then, in the next couple of days, you appeared there to say good-bye to me. And tonight, I had a dream about McKenna Smith being cooped up at the Titan Army campsite. She was saying how hopeless it was, and she listed some people who were lost, like Percy and Annabeth. You were one of them. And yet, you've been at the camp the whole time. It's impossible for someone to be in two places at once, Katie. What's going on here? How'd you get from being lost to being at Camp?"

She shuffled her feet and looked around. "Eve…I escaped. The others didn't."

"You mean they…?"

"No," she clarified. "They're alive, last I checked. But not in very good condition, and they're at who-knows-where."

"How'd you get out?" I questioned.

She sighed again. This clearly wasn't a topic she wanted to speak about, but I guess she wanted to keep her word.

"You see, we fell into a trap. A Titan trap. We were almost killed. And then when we got out, there were two pathways. We all heard the god Janus talk in our minds. 'Choose a path, demigods. It will lead to doom, or it will lead to safety. You could go right, and you might be safe, or you might find that you could perish. You could go left, and the same could happen. Decide.' The others all voted to go right, and I don't know what happened to them. But I didn't think they were right, so when they weren't looking, I went left, and I appeared in the Camp Half-Blood woods. I ran to the Big House to tell Chiron what happened. And that's it. I got lucky, and I got unlucky."

I nearly gasped. I had heard that Janus wasn't exactly a fun guy to be around, but to choose between safety and doom without knowing what's what? He led my friends to their probable death (there's that nickname again.) I now had a prejudice against a certain minor god.

"Why didn't you tell the others to follow you before they went their way?" I asked her.

"Eve, you don't think I tried? They disagreed with me. They probably regret it now. But I think I'd rather be there with them…" She sighed again and turned to the boy next to her. "David, would you mind doing me a favor?"

The boy called David nodded. "Sure," he said.

"Tell Chiron that I want to go after my old group. I think I can find my way back."

"Katie!" he said in horror. "You can't go back! You'll end up like the others!"

"The smaller the group, the less chance of getting killed," Katie argued. "That's what they say about the Labyrinth, David."

"LABYRINTH?" I exclaimed. "Please don't tell me you're talking about _the_ Labyrinth."

"I am," Katie told me boldly. "And I want to go back."

"If you do that," I warned. "I'll have Clarisse murder you."

She wavered. "Eve—"

"She has a point, you know," David offered happily.

"This isn't about you, David! Tell Chiron I'm leaving now."

"You know what?" I said angrily. "I'll have Kristen send you an Iris Message and turn you into a wombat for a week. Maybe even a pink-furred wombat with glowing chartreuse eyes and a nose that's too big for its body. Do you want that, Katie?"

"Eve, you're only making this harder!" Katie complained.

"David will keep an eye on you, and he'll send me an Iris Message if you even try to leave once. Right, David?"

David stood taller. "Yeah!" he replied. "Katie, you won't get away easy. And if you sneak away during the night, I'll have Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin help me set up a bunch of booby traps to stop you."

"That's right!" I cheered. "Good thinking."

David smiled a crooked smile.

Katie looked at the both of us. "You're tag-teaming against me? Feeling the love here, people."

"And that concludes today's session of Contact Katie! See you tomorrow, kids," I said in a falsely happy tone of voice and disconnected the Iris Message.

I could almost hear Katie's voice in my head, groaning.

"Eve? Come on!" Lola shouted.

I picked up my things and ran towards the huge tree they had met up at.

"Eve, what have you been doing?" Zachary demanded. "You've kept us waiting too long. Do you realize how much farther we could have gotten by now? How much closer to my sister we could've gotten? Do you, Eve? DO YOU?"

I knew he wasn't being serious, but it kind of surprised me.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Geez."

Zachary said something under his breath that probably wasn't very complimentary towards children of Ares. Probably something about being as thick as a warthog's backside (yes, I'm channeling The Lion King. I have no idea why.)

"Anyways," Zachary said tersely. "We need to move out. Now." He looked at me, eyes narrowed. _Touchy_ was the right word for this guy. But then again, I didn't know what he'd dreamt of last night. I didn't know what he'd seen happen to McKenna this time.

We all moved forward, but we were stopped quite quickly, and not to mention, very abruptly.

There was an aura. Then it turned into a glow. Then we shielded our eyes, because we knew what was coming.

The glowing died out.

Then a man's tired voice came: "Well…what was I doing here, again? Hm…maybe I came to take a nap…oh, hello…"

We uncovered our faces. "Um, hello?" said Tyler Heck.

"Yes, hello," the man said drowsily. "I think I came to…oh, right. I was gonna help you…for whatever reason. I can't remember."

The man looked so familiar, I almost screamed. He looked too much like Notus, the god that we had met last year when we needed to get to Manhattan, but then flung us fifty feet through the air across a few cities and kept calling me Ms. Eve that I almost cringed. But it wasn't Notus, thank goodness. Notus hadn't been nearly as sleepy, and this guy was a lot skinnier, maybe because he slept so much that he skipped meals most of his time.

"You don't remember?" Tyler asked.

"Eh…ye—no," he muttered. He held out the 'ye'. "Can't remember. Is it naptime?" He began to sit down and snore.

"Oh, good grief," Lola whispered. She pushed her way through our group and nudged the guy in the side. When that didn't work, she shouted in his ear, "HEY, WAKE UP!"

"EH!" the man exclaimed. "W-what? Where am…I…" He began to fall asleep again, and Lola, losing her patience, kicked him in the side.

"Yow!" he hollered. Lola practically grabbed him and pulled him to his feet.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Hyp…hyp…ehnumagah…" He collapsed to the ground and fell asleep again.

"Hypnos," Greg confirmed. I heard an edge to his voice, sort of a _'no-wonder'_ kind of edge. If this makes any sense, I heard an eye-roll in his voice, too.

"Ok, Hypnos," Lola growled. "What did you want to tell us?"

"Be…beware th-the knife that ends…y-y-your liiiiife….enumgumaduh…"

After a short pause, somebody said, "Huh?"

"Beware the knife," I repeated. "Beware the knife that ends your life."

Greg looked at me with a puzzled expression, like, "What are you talking about?"

Zachary stared at me. "And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life," he said, as though he were in a trance.

"Zachary…where did you hear that?" I asked tentatively.

"A dream," he told me uncomfortably. "There was more, but I don't want to talk about it. And since we're conversing, where did _you_ hear _that_?"

"A dream," I told him uncomfortably. "But there wasn't more after that. Isabelle—"

I stopped, but I didn't need to continue for everyone to get the main idea. Plainly, Isabelle tampered with dreams a whole lot.

Zachary looked like he was thinking hard. Then he looked down at the snoring figure of Hypnos. He sighed. "He won't wake up any time soon, guys. We should just leave."

"Okay," I muttered. Everyone else said pretty much the same thing.

We walked forward, wary of any other gods that might come our way. But luckily for us, not one came.

But the Meliads came.

Our group (and I'm tired of saying 'our group' or 'the group', so I'm going to start calling us the Musketeers, okay?) had gotten very far, until we hit an orchard. The orchard was pretty endless, so we had no idea which way to go.

I looked around. The trees were covered in apples and oranges and many other fruits. Despite the beauty and plenty of it all, there was ash on the ground. Maybe that's what happened to the apples when there was too much sun. I didn't know, and I wasn't curious enough to figure it out.

"Great," Zachary moaned. "Where are we supposed to go?"

"You could go past my tree and through the meadow," said a voice. It sounded like it came from the tree itself.

"Or you could go past my tree and through the gate, and be led directly to your destination," said another voice.

"Or you could climb the limbs of my tree, and I will carry you to safety," another tree said.

"Who are you?" Zachary demanded. He pulled out his sword. The rest of us did the same.

"I am Manzana-Verdad," said one apple tree.

"And I am Naranja-Futuro," said an orange tree.

"And I am Ceniza-Deseo," said an ash tree.

"Spanish," Carlos murmured. "Okay then."

Zachary looked suspicious. "Okay, where are you? I don't see anyone."

Just then, three girls practically melted out of three different trees. The first one was the oldest, and she came out of the apple tree. The second one was the next oldest, and she melted out of the orange tree. The last one was the youngest, and she came from the ash tree.

"Now you see us," said the orange tree girl, Naranja-Futuro.

"Yeah I do," Zachary said, his eyes bulging out of his head, which was hard to do when he had glasses that prevented them from going too far out of his skull. We'd all seen nymphs come out of trees before at Camp Half-Blood, and we'd all seen them turn into trees, but this wasn't at Camp. I guess we all assumed they lived at the camp, not other places in the world. If any of the satyrs were here, they'd have known they could live elsewhere. Now would be a good time to have a satyr around, too. They had mad tracking skills. They would have been able to get us to McKenna in no time.

"And anyways, we still need you to decide," said the apple tree girl, Manzana-Verdad.

"Who can I trust?" Zachary said suspiciously.

All three of them raised their hands.

"Okay, not helpful," Louis said crankily. "Which way do we go?"

They all pointed to where they'd told us to go.

"Okay, _really_ not helpful," argued Gordon. "Nymphs, you tell us which one of you is right this instant or I will pummel you all into a pulp!" He glared at the orange tree girl. "Literally, punk."

"NYMPH?" Manzana-Verdad screamed. "_NYMPH?_ We are MELIADS, you insolent fool!"

Kyle perked up. "You wouldn't happen to know Tierra-Tìmido, would you?"

"Tierra-Tìmido?" said Ceniza-Deseo.

Kyle nodded.

Manzana-Verdad scoffed. "Yeah, we know her. Pathetic Meliad, that one is. Did you know she goes from tree to tree? Ugh, so un-loyal to her trunk."

Kyle bared his teeth. "Shut up!" he said angrily.

We all gasped. We even had to hold him back so he wouldn't punch the Meliad in the face.

"Oh, but it's true, boy," Manzana said simply, waving the heat off with a fan made completely of leaves except for the frame, which was clearly made of carved wood.

"Shut up!" he repeated. He looked madder than an old cat that had been splashed with a bucket of ice cold water. There had only been one time when I had ever seen Kyle as angry as this, and that was when the lyre had fallen down the elevator shaft, even though he had been the one to drop it.

"Kyle, calm down," Zachary chided. "Please."

Kyle seemed to get control of himself for the most part, but he was still glaring at the Meliad for insulting his girlfriend.

Zachary looked at the Meliads. "Do you mind if we huddle up for a moment?" he asked.

They nodded in respect and melted into their trees again.

Zachary turned to us, and we huddled in a big circle. "Does anyone here know Spanish?" he asked.

"I do," said Carlos.

"What does Manzana mean?" he asked.

"It means 'apple'."

"And Verdad?"

Carlos considered. "I think it means 'truth'."

"And what about Naranja?"

"Orange," he said.

"Okay, and I know Futuro means future," Zachary said. "So what does Ceniza mean, Carlos?"

"It means 'ash', Zack."

"And Deseo?"

"Deseo…um…I think it means…desire. Deseo means desire."

"Okay, so the first part of each of their names is the Spanish word for what kind of tree they live in. Does anyone have a guess as to what the second parts mean?"

"Truth," I said. "I guess that means she's the truthful one of the three, and she'll take us where we need to go. She'll tell the truth about what we need to do. Future…I think that probably means Naranja will take us where we need to go later on, not where we need to be right now. And desire…she said she'd take us to safety if we climbed her branches. That must mean that she'll take us back to Camp Half-Blood where it's safe, and that's where we all really _desire_ to be right now, whether or not we'll admit it. So Manzana will take us where we need to go to find McKenna, Naranja will take us to some random place we'll need to be eventually, and Ceniza will take us back to Camp Half-Blood. So we have to trust Manzana."

"Nice job," Zachary complimented. "Are you sure you're not a daughter of Athena?"

I let out a small laugh. "I think I'd know if I were a child of Athena, Zachary. But anyways, does everyone agree we have to go with Manzana?"

Everyone raised their hands except for Kyle, who said, "You expect me to trust that…thing?"

"Kyle," I said softly. "Please. It's the only way to find McKenna."

Kyle groaned. "Fine, but as long as we can go with Ceniza."

I raised an eyebrow. "Kyle, you do realize that by 'trust Manzana', I mean 'go with Manzana', right?"

"Oh… ugh, fine," he said finally, after he took a long time trying to figure out what I'd said.

We un-huddled and called Manzana to come out of her tree. She came out, smiling friendly-like, and I could almost hear Naranja and Ceniza groaning.

"We trust you, Manzana," Zachary said. "But if you turn out to be a liar, we'll come back to haunt you when we die."

Manzana shook her head. "I am no liar," she said. Then she pointed her hand towards the meadow she'd mentioned before. "Go through that meadow, into the forest, past the river, and you will find a redwood log that separates into two separate ways. Go left, and when you get to the clearing, camp there for the night, because it will take you a very long time to get there and it will be night by the time you are there. Then, if you go through the small assortment of trees that is on one side of the clearing, you will find an Iris Message fountain. It will not disconnect if you go through it. But it will not take you to McKenna, I caution you. It will take you somewhat close, but not there at all. Probably about a few states away from her location at Mount Othrys in San Francisco. If that is the case, you will most likely be in Wyoming or Colorado. Good luck."

On that happy and confusing note, we marched to the meadow.

"Eve?" Rosa asked me when we were almost out of the meadow.

"Hm?" I said absentmindedly.

"This whole 'beware the knife' thing…what do you know about it?"

"I just know the saying. 'Beware the knife. Beware the knife that ends your life.' And apparently Zachary knows the next lines. 'And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life.' Where he got that, I don't know. I only heard the first line."

"You know more," Rosa urged. "What did Kronos say?"

"Kro—wait, how did you know that Kronos said that?"

"I had a feeling. Anyway, what did he say, Benson?"

"Rosa, I'm not really sure—"

"Benson," she said harshly. "Tell me."

I sighed. I really hated it when people called me by my last name. "Rosa, I was being rude and sarcastic to him. Then when he told me to stop and I didn't, he said…he said, 'Then you have just set in stone the death of your petty little friend, Benson.' Then he repeated the line about the knife."

"This knife thing scares me," she said. "I don't get it. Who's knife? Who dies? Why? It just doesn't add up, Benson." She was using my last name casually, as if it was my first name.

"I don't get it or like it either," I told her. "But while we're talking, do you remember a kid named Timmothy Dowell?"

Rosa thought hard. "Yes. I met him when… Simon was still alive." I noticed that she acknowledged Simon's existence for once. "We got split up by some monster. I got locked up in a dumpster, and Simon was looking for me, but he didn't find me. Timmothy picked the lock of the dumpster, and I scrambled out. We had a very brief chat and I ran off to find Simon." Then she laughed. "I found him in a candy store trying to rob licorice, so we could celebrate when he found me."

I let out a half-hearted laugh. Then I eyed Rosa's spear. "You know, I don't think you've tried to kill me in a long time," I said in a small voice.

"No, I haven't," she replied. "The last time had to be…right after Lola was claimed by Hades. Wow, it has been a while! I need to get back on track."

"No, no," I assured. "Veering off the train track is exactly what I want from you."

"Aww, but what's the fun in that?" she said jokingly. She scowled and glared directly at me, just to prove that she could easily get back in character. Rosa picked up her spear and pretended to stab me with it. It was all in good fun, but it creeped me out a little, because if I said the wrong thing, she could kill me easily.

I looked around. Everything was so beautiful in the meadow, which made it completely out-of-place in the life of a demigod. It was too perfect for us. We were the ruthless, ragged band of doomed Musketeers. We hardly deserved to be in such a pretty place. We ruined the glory of the meadow.

We entered the forest and walked past the river. There were raspberry vines all around.

We came to the redwood log. Even this thing looked too cool for us.

"Which way did she say to go?" Penelope asked.

"Right!" Kristen cheered.

"In that case," Zachary snapped, "we're going left."

So we went left, and after a long time of walking through a dark tunnel of redwood bark, we reached the clearing.

Manzana hadn't been wrong. It was late at night and very dark out by the time we got there and set up camp.

There were caves and large rocks around some parts of the clearing, so I half-expected lions to come popping out, growling.

"So," Carlos managed after a long silence. "What are we doing tomorrow for entertainment, guys? Maybe head through lion-infested savannahs and walk over a fallen log in mid-air that has risk of falling into a crocodile pit? Or maybe telling Ares to shut his huge mouth and telling Hera that she stinks, ironically, like cow manure? Or perhaps we should contact the camp and tell them we're one step away from death? Whatever we choose to do, I will NOT willingly do any of that."

There were a few snickers and scoffs. I just rolled my eyes. "Carlos, you do know that none of that is going to happen, except maybe that last one, right?"

Carlos grinned. "Pfft. I can totally see Annabeth telling Hera she stinks like cows."

He got a few laughs out of that, but not much more. Everyone was just too tired to think much of it.

I sighed and set down my things next to the smaller of the two large caves surrounding the clearing, next to the belongings of my siblings. But I didn't plan on sleeping with them this time. I was gonna go into that cave in the night, no matter who woke up to stop me. I wanted to get away from these people just for one moment, especially those Ares kids. I couldn't tolerate them.

I pretended to fall asleep, and after about an hour of sitting there and thinking about how gods-awful this situation was, I decided that I had to be the only one still awake. There was no noise, and when I looked, no one was moving or blinking, only breathing. I grinned to myself and crept quietly into the cave.

Just as I was about to lie down to sleep on the hard dirt floor, I noticed a small door with a rusted knob. It appeared to be long since locked, so I really doubted anyone had been in there for ages.

I crawled over to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough, it was sealed shut. I wondered what could possibly be in there.

Then I got a completely and utterly Kristen-like thought: _Pick the lock, dunderhead. Use your brain._

I walked silently over to the Aphrodite section. I knew at least one of them had to keep a toothpick somewhere. After all, they were set on looking beautiful. They probably cleaned their teeth, too. So I unzipped Giselle's backpack as quietly as I could, but unfortunately, no toothpick. I checked Annika next. Thankfully, her backpack was already open, so I didn't have to take on the task of opening it without someone waking up.

And, to my happiness, she had a whole box of toothpicks. I "borrowed" one and crept back into the cave as quietly as I possibly could.

I picked the lock of the door, and with a little push and some loud scraping against rock that made me cringe and should have woken at least one person up, it opened. I crawled through the space, and after turning on a light (for some odd reason there was a light switch in this place), I closed the door and stood in amazement.

It was all made of rock, which I still don't get, and it was strangely beautiful. There were books everywhere, which boggled my dyslexic mind because I would never be able to read one bit of it, and there was an upstairs and a downstairs.

I went downstairs first. There was a kitchen that had probably never been used in a hundred years, and that was all there was down here, so I went upstairs instead.

There were books everywhere up here, too, but there were more rooms up here.

I went into the first room, and it had a bunch of pictures of someone I couldn't see because all of the pictures were completely scratched up. Some pieces were completely torn off and littered the ground. I figured that whoever had last lived here held a serious grudge against somebody, but I wasn't going to worry about it now.

I went into the second room, but it was just a bathroom (though there was no toilet, only a potted tree and a roll of stiff toilet-paper. I was beginning to question who had last owned this place), so I left.

I went into the third room. It was clearly a guest room, because all it had was a neatly-made bed (though it was very dusty by now), and it was filled with _more_ books. Who lived here, a hobo child of Athena? There weren't even any stuffed animals or anything in here, just books and the bed. No TV. Not a single thing that caught my interest.

I went into the fourth room. This place was slightly more interesting. An untidy bed, only a couple of books, quite a few stuffed animals, so on. The only thing that confused me was the scratching post in the corner. Maybe this weirdo had a cat.

I went into the fifth and final room, and I wish I hadn't. It had torn stuffed animals (which creeped me out in the first place), but there was more than that. _Skulls _and _bones._ They definitely weren't human bones, and I could tell from the skulls. They just weren't human-like. They looked more like they belonged to tigers or lions. Maybe it wasn't just a hobo Athena kid who used to live here. Maybe there was a hobo killer-Ares kid here, too. I didn't care, but I knew two things: I was going to get out of here right now, and I was never going to be an Ares kid like that. It didn't matter that my siblings were like that, and my father, but killing animals and keeping their skulls? Eurgh. No, thanks. I'd rather not. That was more the Hades thing to do.

I left that place as fast as I could. I threw down the toothpick inside of the murder-house, closed the door and made sure it was locked.

I panted heavily and caught my breath. Something was _seriously_ wrong with my life.

But then I got an idea that might take the weight off of my shoulders. I looked for a nearby spring and happened to come across the same Iris Message fountain Manzana had told us about. I threw in a drachma (by this point I knew I'd be broke by the end of the quest, so I figured, why not?)

"O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering," I said. Since it worked the last time, I was still fairly certain that that was what you had to say to get Iris' attention.

After a few moments, I told it, "David, son of Demeter, Camp Half-Blood, New York." I hoped there was only one son of Demeter named David. Also, it would have been really useful to know his last name for this thing. That's what makes it a little more official, like, "THIS is who I want."

The mist shimmered, and David appeared, holding Katie's arm, carrying her away from the woods of Camp Half-Blood. David looked triumphant, and Katie looked so annoyed, I was very surprised she wasn't saying anything.

"David? What are you doing?" I questioned slowly.

"Following your orders," he replied happily. "I just stopped Katie from going back into the Labyrinth. She was trying to escape for the third time this morning. The guards wouldn't have let her in anyway, but I thought it would make me look more responsible if I got her myself, so…"

"Please don't tell me there's a _third _boy trying to impress me," I muttered.

David tried to mask a look of nervousness. "What? Me? No! I assure you, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm just doing my duty to the Camp. But anyways, shouldn't you be asleep by now? It's probably midnight by now."

I sighed. "Should be. Would be. I'll fill you in later on why I'm not asleep. But anyways, why are _you_ two awake? The camp has curfew, what would happen if the harpies caught you breaking it? You know how hungry they get, and they _are_ allowed to eat us if we break curfew. No idea why Chiron allows this, but…anyways, answer me."

"I was trying to get into the Labyrinth," Katie explained.

"Yeah, I got that," I mumbled. "David, explain yourself."

"I couldn't sleep, but I saw Katie leaving, so I followed her. I wasn't going to let her get away when I got an order from an Ares kid, so I had to," David said sincerely.

"Okay then. David, I want you to watch her. If you have to stay up all night, I want you to do it." He nodded fervently. I turned to Katie. "I'm sorry, Katie, but I don't trust you enough."

Katie muttered something about trust issues, but I knew better than to trust her right now. She would never listen to me if I told her not to. It would be completely futile. So, I was going to sic a completely harmless son of the goddess of agriculture on her to keep her in line. Yeah, that made sense. But I had nothing else to do to stop her. I'd threatened Clarisse and Kristen on her, but she didn't seem to care either way. Now, she deserved a babysitter.

I nodded to David, and he nodded back. He left, Katie still being dragged. I sliced my hand through the mist to disconnect it, but it stayed.

"Um…" I said.

"You have to do something else to disconnect it," said a voice behind me. "Touching it with your body won't do anything to this. Remember what I told you? It will take you to somewhere near McKenna if you go through it, it won't disconnect."

I turned to see Manzana.

"I thought you didn't want to leave your tree?" I asked.

"I'll go back," she assured me. "But this is close enough to my tree that I can get back very fast. Dryads have speed. We go from tree to tree, and we get back pretty quick. Anyways, you need to know how to disconnect that, right?"

I nodded.

Manzana picked up a pointy stick, touched it to see how sharp it was, and threw it like a harpoon at the Iris Message, and it disconnected.

"You have to hit it with a part of a tree?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Manzana scoffed. "No," she chided. "You have to throw something sharp at it. Your fingers aren't exactly sharp, are they?" She gave me a scolding look, like, _Are you a demigod or are you stupid?_

"No," I admitted quietly.

"Exactly my point," Manzana said firmly. "Anyways, I must be off. Goodbye."

With that, she disappeared.

I sighed and went back to the campsite.

I lay down on my sleeping bag tentatively and glanced at the sleeping Penelope next to me. I hoped she'd learn one day that we as Ares children didn't have to be killers, bullies. I thought of how the one room had held slaughtered stuffed animals and old skeleton bones. I didn't want to be like that, which was definitely not like Ares at all, but then again, did my siblings really want that kind of life for themselves, either? Did they want destruction everywhere they went? Probably not.

I sighed.

Maybe one day I could tell them how wrong it all was.

One day.

* * *

**Like Manzana? Hate Manzana? Me too.**

**Like the creepy place? Hate the creepy place? Me too.**

**Like where this is going so far? Me too. Hate where this is going so far? You're a lunatic.**

**By the way, I talked to the thief at school today. He told me how Lola would be killed xD She would be squashed by a Hyperborean giant and die a long, painful death. Ain't that happy? I called him a thief and walked home, satisfied :)**

**CHECK OUT LIKEN. I COMMAND YOU.**

**As always, **

**your SoT.**

**Wait, am I calling myself a sot? Hm...**


	11. Dreams Really Stink

**Hey people.**

**This one isn't nearly as long, and I don't care. Still longer than my old ones.**

**I got an A-plus in science. And yet I got a B-plus in writing. WOW. A few late writing assignments and look what happens. You go down by a whole grade. Because, I mean, not to brag, but we all know I should've gotten an A or an A-plus in writing :3**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO.**

**Claimer: I own everything else but Kristen who never even appeared in this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**Dreams Really Stink**

It was a typical day.

Typical for a demigod, anyway.

But I'll have to tell you about that afterward, because I fell asleep at the end of our last little journey, and you know where that leads.

Dreams.

I didn't see what I normally saw. I didn't see McKenna. I saw something I had never seen in a dream. It was utterly horrifying, a true nightmare, it was…

Boys and make-up and gross things.

It was not like a demigod dream at all. It was just a creepy dream a normal teenage girl might have. Flirting with boys, kissing, stuff like that. So basically, it scared me worse than when I saw McKenna tied up. This kind of thing didn't exactly dominate the forefront of my mind, and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. I'm not saying I'd ever like watching McKenna suffer, but that had to be better than this—probably, at least.

The first thing I saw was Field. That was the worst part of the dream.

I was a normal girl, or at least, I acted like it in the dream. I was at a high school, like a normal person. I was sorting through my locker, like a normal person. I had pictures of Field and hearts and kiss marks on my locker, like a psychopath. Lola was standing next to me, and something about her may have creeped me out more than Field: was it because it was Lola eavesdropping on me? No. Was it because she was wearing earrings? Only a little. Was it because she was wearing a bright pink T-shirt? Partially. Was it because she was wearing so much make-up you'd think she was an Aphrodite girl? Heck yeah. I looked over myself to make sure I wasn't like that. Luckily, I was wearing a bright orange shirt, jeans, no make-up, no earrings, no nothing. Only my Camp necklace, and nobody seemed to care, so I guess my dream-self didn't either. I wondered where I got that, though, if I was just a normal girl in the dream.

"Sooooo, Evie, what did you, like, get on the spelling test?" Lola asked in a falsetto voice that definitely wasn't hers. Something was very wrong here. Maybe it was because I liked Field in this dream. Maybe it was because Lola was creeping me out. Maybe both.

I wanted to say, _Evie? Are you kidding me, Lola? REALLY? You're out of character, girl._ But my dream-self said something else: "I got a D! Isn't that great? So much better than last time!"

That was probably true; spelling tests weren't my best thing, considering the whole dyslexia thing. But being happy about a D? That was plain pathetic. Sure, it was better than a G (Lola had somehow managed to get one once before), but D's weren't exactly wonderful.

"Zachary would, like, so look down on us for this," Lola commented.

So we knew Zachary. We were venturing into a land a little bit more demigod-ish.

"Ugh, so would Annabeth," I replied. "But Percy would understand. And Kyle."

What was this place, the demigod world turned normal? Demigod High?

"Oh, yeah," Lola said, grinning her make-up-ed face off. "Kyle's gotten an _E_ before! How can someone get an E? That's horrible!"

"You've gotten a G," I reminded her.

"So?" Lola snapped. Maybe there was still a little bit of Lola Ruman in there. Maybe.

I giggled, which was totally unlike me.

Thank goodness, Greg came to the rescue.

"Shouldn't you two be in class?" he asked nervously, scratching the back of his head. I wondered if he liked me here, too. For once, I hoped so. Maybe he'd get me away from Field.

I scoffed at him. Lola glared at him and fixed her hair.

I wanted to say, _PLEASE! Take me to class! Get me away from this creepy Lola and weird locker before I puke!_ But instead I said: "Get away, Willins. Not interested."

Greg looked like he regretted to say what he had to say next. "I'll have to tell Secretary Chiron if you don't."

"Oh, Chiron?" Lola laughed. "We don't care. He wouldn't suspend us for missing class. We're too pretty for that."

"But Principal D—"

"Same reason, Greggie!" Lola sang shrilly. "Too pretty. I'm like a goddess, like Aprodime!"

"You mean Aphrodite?" Greg asked timidly.

"Oh, who cares?" I said happily. "It'll never help us in life anyway."

_Never help us?_ I thought. _You people disgust me. Get out of my sight, mortals._

"Right!" said Lola. "We'll win with charm and beauty, not knowledge about some fake goddess."

At this point, I was ready to gag. I took control of my dream and forced myself to slap Lola and hide behind Greg, which surprised both of them.

Then Field came. He was more handsome than he was in the real world, which didn't say much, because Field wasn't exactly Mr. Hottie. But I was still surprised to see him look better than he did. He almost looked as nice as Greg or someone like him. But he was still Field. I saw a gleam in his eyes, like he was humored by everything I did, and his smile was crooked, like a Hermes child. His hair was darker and slicked back. He was paler. He was creepy. And yet it was certainly him, Field Lent, the creep himself. I doubted his mom was actually Khione. Had we seen Field use snow powers? Nope. Tomorrow, I'd have to challenge him.

"Hello, ladies," he said. His voice had an edge to it, like the gleam in his eyes—as if we humored him.

I spat at him. He looked at me like I was crazy.

"Temper, much?" he questioned.

I hid behind Greg. That was the only safe haven from Field.

"Get away, Field!" I snapped. "I've hated you since I met you. Rosa was right about you!"

"Rosa? That geek in our Algebra 2 class? The one with the glasses and Palm Pilot?"

Whatever he meant by that, I nodded. "Rosa van Cleaven," I clarified.

"You're so funny. Come on," he said slickly. He took Lola by the arm, who looked like she would faint. He held out his other arm.

Greg took the upper hand and slapped it away. He pulled my hand and took me into a different hallway. I could have sworn I heard Rosa's voice somewhere else, scolding Field. It was nasally for some reason, though.

"That was weird."

"Really?" I said sarcastically.

"Yeah, really," he said.

"Um, that was sarcasm, Greg."

"Sarcasm? You know what that is?" he asked seriously.

"Was _that_ sarcasm?" I questioned. "Because if I don't know sarcasm, I don't know life."

"You've only known pretty things," he argued. "And gross stuff like that."

"Greg," I told him, looking him straight in his blue eyes. "This is a dream. I _hate_ that stuff. It's gross. I'm lucky I got control over this thing. Otherwise I'd be strolling through the hallway with Field about now."

"You called me Greg."

"Duh," I muttered. He was lucky I didn't step on his foot.

"Do you normally call me that? Outside of this dream?"

"What else would I call you? What do I call you here?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Willins," he replied. "Or Greggie. Or Loser. Stuff like that."

"I'd only call you Willins out of that list, and only if I'm annoyed with you, which I'm normally not. Don't worry about it."

He looked like he'd just learned he was going to go to Hawaii and get a dog and go on a date with me. That's how happy he looked. I'm not kidding. Life must have been pretty harsh in this place.

"Is it okay if I take you to class?"

"No."

"Okay," he said quietly.

"Hopefully, my dream's gonna end now. Later, Greg #2."

He waved shyly and my dream changed. Thank goodness, because I've heard of demigod dreams. They're weird. They're scary. I've experienced them before. But that was plain creepy.

Now it was a slightly different scenario: and I was very grateful for it, because it wasn't creepy.

I was watching myself talk to Field. The conversation sounded very familiar.

"You might want to back off, punk. I know perfectly well what you're up to," I said.

"I'm not here as a minion of Kronos, if that's what you're thinking. I'm on this quest because I've got to be here."

"Yeah, right. And I'm not really a child of Ares. I'm secretly a daughter of Aphrodite."

"Eve, I'm being honest. I don't care about Kronos. They're making me do it," he pleaded. As if I'd trust him.

"How about this. I want you to deliver a message for me," I offered.

"Sure, anything," he said.

"Tell Drake and Leslie that I hate them. Tell Kronos' monsters to let McKenna go. Tell McKenna that we're coming for her. And tell yourself that I'm not buying your innocent act, so you can stop trying to play it out."

"Eve—"

"You said you'd do anything, Field. Just _do it_, and go bug some other person that's gullible enough to believe you."

The conversation ended.

The dream shifted. Now I was looking into an Iris Message.

David was carrying Katie away to the Demeter cabin, away from the forest.

"David? What are you doing?" I questioned slowly.

"Following your orders," he said happily. "I just stopped Katie from going back into the Labyrinth. She was trying to escape for the third time this morning. The guards wouldn't have let her in anyway, but I thought it would make me look more responsible if I got her myself, so…"

"Please don't tell me I've got a _third_ boy trying to impress me," I muttered.

David tried to mask a look of nervousness. "What? Me? No! I assure you, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm just doing my duty to the Camp. But anyways, shouldn't you be asleep by now? It's probably midnight by now."

I remembered more, but the dream decided to change itself around anyway.

I barely recognized the scene. Greg and I were fourteen again, and it was when we were on our first quest. We were in the cab to Olympus.

"Why didn't you give him that extra three bucks?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Greg asked me.

"You know what you did."

"…Fine. I like my money."

"Yeah, right," I muttered.

"Ok, the real reason…I wanted to spend more time with you? I actually like the quest and the danger."

"You like the danger?"

"Yeah."

"Because you can save me if I'm in 'damsel-in-distress mode," I suggested.

"…Maaay-be."

"Thought so."

The dream shifted again.

Greg turned on me and kissed me, and I was utterly shocked. I certainly didn't like it…so, I shoved his face away.

"What was that for?" I asked stupidly.

"Because I like you. A lot. And, I wanted to thank you for persuading Lola to let me on the quest."

"It was Mr. D who got Chiron to let us have four people and that was only out of wanting less campers. Thank him. Just…don't kiss him. That would be disgusting."

He chuckled. "I'd never."

"Thank gods."

The dream changed again. I hated it when my dreams kept doing that.

"Please, please, please, please, _please_ don't leave us alone with that witch again," Greg stuttered.

"And why exactly would we do that?" Lola questioned. "That's the kind of mistake you only make once, my friend."

"Yeah," I agreed. "We have definitely learned our lesson. Besides, do you realize what they took us away for? They actually tried to paint my nails. They are so lucky that they're still alive."

"No kidding," Lola said. "Do you know how many cucumber slices I had to throw at them before they stopped trying to stick them on my face?"

"Gross, that's what happened over there? Compared to that, I think I'll take being a turtle again, thank you very much," Greg mused.

"Oh, believe me, honey, I'd take that, too," I said.

"Honey?" he asked hopefully.

"Don't get your hopes up, dude, that's not what I meant."

And the dream changed…again.

"What are they?" I asked Greg. I didn't recall anything about creepy looking nymphs wanting to destroy you in any of the myths.

"Maenads," he replied. "They're obsessed with Dionysus. He drove them wild with passion. They'll rip anyone to shreds if they can find them. They're related to nymphs, so that's why they're manipulating the trees. They were waiting for us."

"Crud," I said. "This may be my fault."

"How so? I don't see what you could have done to make this happen."

I explained to him about Circe, but he tried to contradict my theory. I told him to never mind.

But of course, the dream changed. I wasn't surprised anymore.

Isabelle was back again.

"Hey," I muttered.

"Hi," Isabelle said sadly.

"Lose the game?" I asked casually.

"Yes," she said droopily. "Who knew paper ruled over rock? I could have sworn rock crushed paper into the ground…"

"That's how I learned it," I told her. "Then Lola beat me one day and explained that I was wrong…sigh."

"Sad…children of powerful, bad gods can't even win a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors…we stink."

"We do. We stink like demigod."

"At least, the monsters and satyrs think so…"

I laughed. "Good point." Monsters and satyrs had mega good smelling. They could smell a demigod from a mile away, if not more.

"So, since you lost, what's this big plan?" I asked.

"I told Sacramento she could tell you. Not me."

"Can you bring Sacramento over here?"

"No!" Isabelle protested. But Sacramento heard her name and came bounding in, smiling up at Isabelle innocently. She was wearing new clothes today—maybe Isabelle had lent her something of hers.

"Yes, big sister?" Sacramento asked innocently, smiling, stormy eyes shining. And from that, I knew she was totally going to rat Isabelle out. Sacramento batted her eyes.

"Please?" Isabelle squeaked.

"Not a chance," Sacramento joked. She turned to me. "Isabelle plans on following the group and—MMM!"

That 'MMM' came from Isabelle putting her hand over Sacramento's mouth. Sacramento struggled to pull her off, but Isabelle was stronger than she looked.

"BALLOONS!" I shouted.

Isabelle moved her hand. "Huh?"

"Just trying to distract you. Hit it, Mento!"

"Mento? I'm not a candy!"

"Whatever! Hit it!"

"She plans to follow you guys and help stop Kronos because she feels unimportant!" Sacramento screamed really fast.

I turned to Isabelle. "You feel unimportant?"

"Kind of," Isabelle whispered, her shoulders drooping.

There was a silence.

"Go on," I urged.

"My fatal flaw is self-esteem, Eve."

"How can you be proud and unimportant all at once?"

"No, Eve—I meant I lack self-esteem. That's my fatal flaw. I don't believe in myself enough."

"Fatal flaw?"

"Sure. Every hero's got one. It means the one little thing in you that could destroy you. Hence the 'fatal' part. Annabeth's is hubris. Yours is probably need."

"Need?" I repeated.

"Need," she clarified. "Meaning you feel like you need to fit in. Need to be normal. Need certain things. Just…need. It could be feeling the need to be on medication because of your ADHD. Whatever. Just plain old need."

I raised an eyebrow. "Probably not," I said. I had my own idea about what my fatal flaw was.

Isabelle shrugged. "Who knows," she said.

I swallowed. "I think it's pride, Isabelle."

She raised her own eyebrow this time. "Pride?"

"Not like your lack in self-esteem. I have a little too much self-esteem. I thought I could handle being a child of Apollo. I couldn't. I thought I could make Greg go away at some point. I can't. Back when we were at Circe's the other day, I thought I could challenge her. I was barely able to. I think too many things. I thought I could summon some Ares power. I barely can. I'm not like Penelope or Rico or Gordon or Clarisse, or Mark or Sherman. But sometimes I have too little self-esteem. I don't think I can do things, I don't think I can succeed all the time. My pride goes up and down. That sounds fatal to me."

Isabelle sighed. "Maybe. That sounds like it. Mento, what's your fatal flaw?" She was trying to take it off my shoulders. I loved it when she did that.

Sacramento groaned. "I don't know and even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. Don't ask me again, Isabelle."

She turned away and folded her arms across her chest. Isabelle shrugged at me, like, _Hey, don't look at me._

After a bit of silence, I couldn't take it. I had to say something. "You shouldn't have called her Mento," I muttered jokingly.

Isabelle stifled a laugh. Then she turned to Sacramento. "I am sorry I called you Mento. I will now call you Sacramento."

"Good," Sacramento said warily, raising an eyebrow, with a general look of annoyance on her face.

"Any who, Eve, we need to be off. Bye," Isabelle said.

The dream faded, and something I wasn't used to happened: I got a different dream. I never had more dreams after Isabelle visited. This was out of the norm.

I saw an older version of Greg sitting on a park bench, watching a little girl play. Next to him was a beautiful woman. She looked creepily familiar. And I really did not like that. It made me feel uncomfortable, because I knew exactly who she was. I'd seen her before. I'd seen her _lots_ of times. Countless times. But this was one way I certainly did not like seeing her.

Then it changed again.

I saw Greg sleeping. I was probably seeing what was actually happening right now. But that's not what I cared about. What mattered t me was that I could see his dream, too. He was dreaming of…_me_. I wasn't too surprised, I mean, this is Greg we're talking about, but I felt something else, too. It was either revulsion, happiness, or confusion. I don't know which, so I'll go with all of the above.

I suddenly remembered what Penelope had said about Ares kids and talking in their sleep. This was a seriously bad night for that. This whole night had mainly been about Greg. Now Rico would really think I liked him. If he said anything, even a word, about Greg in the morning, I'd kill him.

The dream shifted for the tenth time tonight.

I saw a chasm again. I hated chasms now.

_Eve Benson, you will fail,_ he said. _Your friends will die, and you will lose. I am too powerful._

"Kronos, stop."

_Failures end up thrown in Tartarus. Do you want to see your future, so you can know what to do to not fail?_

"Why should I trust you?" I snapped. "Stop, Kronos. Just stop."

But I had no power to stop him. An image appeared before me.

Everyone was dead. Everyone I knew. Lola, Kyle, Greg, Rosa, Zachary, Isabelle, and everyone else I cared about. There was one man standing, and he looked familiar. He had red hair, freckles, silver glasses, and a red shirt.

"Eve, don't mess this up," Simon said. "We have to win. The world as we know it depends on that. Please don't mess this up."

I didn't like the sound of that.

It stopped and went back to Kronos. _Don't mess up. Don't mess up my plans, that is. Unless you wish to go down with your petty little friends whose deaths have been set in stone by _you.

The dream ended there. And I was horrified.

* * *

**Bye people. Have a great week.**


	12. Rosa Herself Again And Trouble At Work

**I has a smart. I got the highest grade on a test that my teacher has seen in her whole career (on that particular test anyway).**

**Disclaimer, blah blah blah.**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**Rosa Is Herself Again And Trouble Is At Work**

It was a very not-normal day. I blame Rosa. Just because, really, she didn't do anything.

It was _going_ to be another normal day. But as we've established, no day is ever normal for a demigod. Not even your birthday. By birthday, I mean your actual birth day. That's where the weird factor begins. At least, mine did. Then I hit the ground when I was only eight months old when my mom died and a god abandoned me. But you know my back story. You're not stupid. I hope not, anyway.

We all woke up soon. I was thinking about two things: my dream the night before, and the room with bones. And how I hoped my siblings would understand. Understand how wrong it all was. The Ares kids didn't have to be wicked. We were just giving ourselves a bad reputation. Who wanted that?

The Musketeers (I told you I refused to call us 'the group' anymore) were about to go through Manzana's little portal. But Kyle got mad again.

"I don't trust that Meliad," he kept grumbling.

"Kyle, let it go. She's helping us on our quest, and the sooner we finish our quest, the sooner you can be back with Tierra and complain about Manzana some more there," I snapped. He had been complaining in his sleep, and it was getting kind of old. I felt bad for him and I felt bad about snapping, but I was losing it. When people talk about the same thing continuously for too long, I get annoyed.

"Be quiet," he mumbled. Kyle had been like this since the day before when we met Manzana, and he hadn't stopped. He refused to let it go and complain later. It was as if he cared more about that than saving McKenna. That was probably the case. I really doubted he was thinking about McKenna at all. He was just plain furious.

"Kyle," Lola said, "please just calm down. We're trying to work with you."

Kyle looked around and pointed at me. "She's not."

Greg rolled his eyes. "Come on, Kyle. We've had enough of this. Please."

I was hoping the whole "best-friend-soothingly-trying-to-call-Kyle-down" approach was going to work, but to my dismay, all Kyle said was, "Fat chance."

Then Zachary butted in. He stood in front of Kyle and looked him in the eye. "Kyle. That's enough."

Kyle bit his lip and turned away. "Fine."

Zachary grimaced and reassumed his position at the front of the Musketeers.

"Let's go, people," he said. He put his hand through the Iris Message, but very quickly took it back out. "Eurgh!"

"What?" asked Giselle with a puzzled look on her face. "What is it?"

Zachary looked too horrified for words.

"Zachary?" Corry asked. "Are you alright?"

"Eugh. Manzana could have mentioned that," Zachary muttered in an annoyed tone of voice.

"Mentioned what, Zach?" Carlos asked slowly and warily.

"Not even sure I can describe it. Just…you guys may want to close your eyes while passing through. I think Deimos and Phobos must have enchanted this Iris Message passageway."

Lola turned to me with wide eyes. "_Deimos_ and _Phobos_? Oh, great…"

That wasn't totally alarming or anything. If it were alarming, I wouldn't have said, "Lola, you're alarming me," or anything like that. What gives you such an impression?

"I alarm everyone," she muttered. "But anyway, you need to know why I'm freaking out?"

I could tell she was definitely freaking out. She was paler than usual, which really meant something, because she was already nearly as white as a sheet. And she was sweating really badly; both of those symptoms meant bad news. If someone who was never afraid looked so afraid that she looked as if she could cry for mommy at any moment, I don't know how any gullible wimp would react.

"Not so sure anymore, considering how scared you look. But tell me anyway," I told her.

"Deimos and Phobos are the godly sons of Ares. Not sure who their mother is. But they're children of Ares, but not demigods, they're minor gods, they have way more power than all of us combined have. One is the god of terror, one is the god of fear. Neither of them are pleasant fellows. They sneer and jeer and say rude things, but worst of all, if you look into their eyes, they show you the thing you fear most. If that's not enough, they show it to you in horrifyingly, excruciatingly descriptive detail. If you happen to be a fan of Harry Potter, your first thoughts might be a Boggart."

"Well…that's not creepy or anything. Where did you learn all this?"

"Don't act like I do nothing at Camp. I study stuff like this so I can be prepared." She set her jaw and stared ahead of her.

I couldn't help but think of why she might purposely study Greek mythology. Lola wasn't the study-up-before-the-test kind of person. I knew the girl got paranoid sometimes, but still.

"Lola…why were you studying Greek myths? Were you...?"

"Eve, I know where you're going with this. And I was _not _studying because of that Aetheopian drakon. That was years ago. I don't know why you'd think that I'm that paranoid that something will attack us." She still looked very solemn and hard about it, which was how I knew she was lying to me.

"Ok, guys. Do NOT open your eyes while going through the Iris Message. Unless you want to be scared out of your wits, I sincerely advise it," Zachary told us.

He shut his eyes very tightly and went through. Then he was gone.

Then Giselle went through, then Karen, and then Carlos. After them went Field, Tyler, and Louis. And then Penelope, Kristen (who I didn't imagine would even see anything too terrible if she opened her eyes, considering she was probably what would be seen by at least one of our Musketeers), and Rico. And then went Gordon, Annika, Jasmine, Darius, Corry, Elijah, and Davie. That left Greg, Kyle, Lola, Rosa, and me.

Kyle went through with his eyes shut very tight. Then Lola braced herself.

She didn't look so good. In fact, she looked like she was going to be sick.

"It'll be okay, Lola," I told her comfortingly (or as comfortingly as a child of Ares can manage). "Just don't open your eyes."

Lola nodded grimly and closed her eyes as tight as they could go. She even put a hand over her eyes just in case. Then she disappeared through the Iris Message.

Rosa looked at Greg and I with horror. "Are you guys going to go first, or…?"

I had no intention of going first. What I wanted was to not go through at all. But Rosa looked like she needed to go last or she'd freak out.

I was about to say that she could go before us when she said, "Never mind. I'll just get it over with."

She went through, but then I heard screaming. I didn't recognize it as Rosa's scream, because I'd never heard her scream before, but I was sure it was her. I ran next to the Iris Message.

"Rosa, can you hear me?" I called.

"I—Simon—AHHH!—Ph-phobos…Eve! W-what did you s-say?"

"Rosa, can you hear me?" I repeated.

"Yes!" she responded in a shriek.

"CLOSE YOUR EYES!" I shouted. "Close your eyes and keep going!"

"I can try," I heard her tell me. Then the screaming died down and I heard nothing else besides some angry shouting on the other end, and it was Zachary either telling us to hurry up or reprimanding Rosa for opening her eyes.

And now only Greg and I were left.

"D-do you want to go first?" I murmured weakly. "I...okay, I know this is lame for a child of Ares to say, but I'm really freaked out right now."

"Not lame," Greg said. "_Normal_. And I don't feel like going through either. I think I'm more scared now than I've ever been of anything before."

"So neither of us feel like going through first. Yeah, this is really getting us places."

"How about a compromise?" he offered. "Let's go through together."

I'd normally be annoyed by that, coming from Greg and everything, but I was never more grateful for him wanting to help me out. I nodded.

He held out his hand.

"Your idea of together must be different than mine, but fine," I muttered, and I took his hand.

We went through the Iris Message together, but my thoughts were not filled with any happiness that Greg might have been feeling because he finally got somewhere with his love plans. I was worrying about what Rosa might have seen, and what I might see if I opened my eyes.

So, of course, my eyes involuntarily opened.

The IM was thicker than it looked from the outside. It was a long tunnel. But I only got to see that for about two seconds before the image hit me.

The world was red, and children of Ares were bombing and wrecking and destroying the world. I saw massive chunks out of the Empire State Building, and there were dead demigods scattered around, and there was rubble from explosions and whatnot that the children of Ares had caused.

But even worse than my own kind destroying things that I loved, I recognized every last dead demigod on the ground. There was Zachary, Corry, McKenna, Katie, David, Karen, Isabelle, Sacramento, Giselle, and many others that I cared about. But there were a few that caught my attention in particular: Lola, Greg, Kyle, Rosa, and Jasmine.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, probably in both the apparition and in reality. But I was focused on the apparition a lot more.

I ran to my friends. I'd always wondered what might happen to any one of them sometime, if a monster came too close, but this just looked horrible. They were bloodied up and gruesome. Especially Greg, for some reason. Lola took second place in terms of blood loss. Then Kyle, then Jasmine, then Rosa. But even though Rosa wasn't as bloody as Greg or the others, she was way bloodier than anyone else who was dead on the ground.

Since Greg looked the worst, that's who I focused on a little more. I tried to wipe up some blood, or something. But nothing worked. All of them were dead anyway.

I was shrieking madly, kicking and fighting. They shouldn't be dead. It was just wrong.

I tried to wake up Greg, I tried opening his eyes, but where _his_ blue eyes should have been, I saw blank blue eyes that I knew were his, but it didn't feel like it. It didn't feel like it at all.

I even tried slapping him awake. But nothing worked. His head just bounced to the side.

I tried to wake up the others, any of them. I tried every last demigod on the ground, but none of them would wake. Not a single one. So I just went back to Greg and sobbed there.

Then, I heard him.

_I warned you to not mess anything up, did I not?_ Kronos taunted. _And look what happened. Every last demigod in the world, destroyed, except for the children of Ares, who are the ones destroying them. You should be ashamed. You let your own kind do this. You should be imprisoned in Tartarus, and when you are pulled in, I shall be pulled out, and I will rule. Is this what you want?_

"YOU!" I shouted. "You let this happen, you inconsiderate, heartless, pathetic TOERAG!"

_Me? Why would you ever blame me? I had no part in this. But you are guilty by association. You are one of them, are you not, demigod? A child of Ares, a child of war, a destructor? I believe you are._

"BUT YOU LET THIS HAPPEN! I'm guessing you ORDERED them to do this! KILL MY FRIENDS! You should know that as a child of Ares, I am very capable of revenge."

_Revenge on me won't work very well, demigod. I am much more powerful than you._

"Try me," I spat.

I felt someone shaking me, and I looked up. I saw the tunnel again, and Greg was holding onto me and shaking me, trying to snap me out of it. His eyes were firmly closed.

It was a relief to see him alive after that horrible vision. I reached up, grabbed him, and hugged him to death. This probably was not what he was expecting, particularly was an Ares kid.

His eyes opened, probably because of the surprise. Then he screamed.

"Uh, oh," I murmured. How I had my eyes open and wasn't seeing the apparition anymore, I wasn't entirely sure, but I was grateful for it.

I reached down and shook Greg. His screaming died down a little, but he was still horrified.

"Close your eyes," I advised.

He was shaken up, but he did it anyway. Then he stopped screaming.

I helped him up, and then we went through the rest of the tunnel together. When we exited the Iris Message, we saw a forest that looked exactly like the one we'd just left, and we were met by a very furious Zachary.

"WHAT-TOOK-YOU-SO-_LONG?_" he demanded.

"My eyes may have…involuntarily…opened…" I muttered weakly.

"Mine, uh, too…" Greg sighed.

Zachary looked angrier than ever. "You opened your eyes in there? When I told you not to? Why?"

"Neither of us tried to. Both of us had accidents," I explained. I realized too late that it sounded awkward to say we had accidents.

Zachary raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? And what exactly happened?"

"Um…I don't really feel like mentioning it. Kind of a personal thing."

Zachary just glared. "Hmph. Well, let's just keep going, shall we? The sooner we get to McKenna, the better."

We both just nodded, and soon we were off again. But Rosa wasn't a happy, er, camper.

"Why did I open my eyes? Ugh, so stupid…" she kept whispering.

"You're not stupid, quit saying that," Jasmine would keep telling her.

"Jasmine, stop trying to reassure me."

"But it's the truth!"

"She's not lying," I said. "You aren't stupid, Rosa."

"Have I ever trusted you, Benson? No. Now be quiet."

"Rosa—"

She brought out her spear and put it at my neck. "Forget it," she sneered. "Just forget this ever happened."

I glared at her. "And pretend you're stupid when you're not? No chance."

She dug the spear into my neck a little. "I said enough."

"Fine," I spat.

Rosa lowered her spear. "Thank you."

"You're not welcome."

She looked like she was considering impaling me with the spear, but she refrained.

Whatever Rosa had seen, it must have knocked her back into place.

I went to another part of the group, where Greg was walking.

"What did you see?" he asked immediately.

"That's something personal," I replied.

"Yeah, so is what I saw, but I'd tell you if you asked."

I frowned. "I'm not curious enough to slip. In any case, thanks for waking me up from that. It was horrible."

"I was about to say the same. What I saw…eurgh. Horrifying."

"Oh, you have no idea how gruesome it was, what I saw. Mine had to be worse," I told him.

"Try me," he grumbled.

"Thanks again."

He sighed. "No problem."

"So where is Zachary taking us?" I asked.

"No idea, but after the rest of this forest, it looks like…" He squinted to see what was ahead of us. "It looks like a town. An actual town. With actual food and actual showers. A town has never sounded better to me."

Before he'd mentioned the food, I hadn't realized how hungry I was. But now my stomach ached with emptiness. I needed food.

"Guys, there's food down the road, keep going!" I shouted. Suddenly everyone was running to get there.

"Well, that worked," Greg laughed.

"Sure did," Lola said, joining us.

"Time to get some food," I said.

* * *

**Yeah, short chappie, whatever. Live with it, you've seen shorter. :U I only needed to convey that Eve is slowly beginning to like Greg, very slowly. I'll get to them even more next chapter. But their slash names are horrible. Our only options are Eg and Greve, neither of which sound nice.**

**Bye.**


	13. Greg Tricks Me

**Oh my demigods, I'm so sorry I was gone so long! I had a LOT going on and my computer didn't want to open up this file (grrr), so it took me FOREVER to get to this. Sorriez.**

**So, anyway, some Greg-Eve fluff this chapter. Not major fluff, but realization and a new beginning :D And Eve will end up maaaaad, LAWL.**

**What's up? I love a few books now. Guardians of Ga'Hoole, dude. Guardians of Ga'Hoole.**

**Hope the chapter is satisfying after that hiatus.**

**Disclaimer (c) I do not own Percy Jackson**

**Claimer (c) I own the stuff that is not PJO**

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**Greg Tricks Me**

Sometimes, your friends can get on your nerves.

But what's more annoying is when your second closest friend tricks you into something you'd never do under normal circumstances.

That would be my situation.

Greg is normally a nice guy. He'll help you or do pretty much whatever you want, unless it's something totally outrageous. But this time he tricked me, big time.

I would absolutely love to tell you how great my day was, that we saved McKenna and killed the bad guys and everything was alright. However, that would be lying, and I don't feel like lying to you.

I was content when we finally got to eat some food. We had provisions and everything, but not much, so when we ate, it was very little. But this was an actual town, with stores and food courts and houses and restaurants and fast-food places. We ate like there was no tomorrow. Sure, we didn't have much money, but we had drachma, and when we offered those to store clerks and cashiers, we found that we got our food rather quickly and efficiently. Wonder why that happened. Maybe it was because we had given them gold.

We took residence in two cabins that sat by a lake. We separated by boys and girls, so it would be somewhat even, and us in the girls cabin bolted the door (so the boys wouldn't get in). We chose bunks and put our stuff underneath the beds.

Afterwards, the Musketeers met in a group outside the cabins and began to discuss what we were going to do next.

"We can't stay too long," Zachary told us. "We have to keep moving. To save my sister and get this quest over with."

"And what if we get killed when we leave? You never know what's out there," Louis said.

"No matter when we leave, we'll get killed. But McKenna has a time limit. She'll be killed soon enough."

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine," Rosa interjected.

"I'm being practical," Zachary snapped, glaring at her.

"Whatever you're being, you're not being optimistic," she spat. "We have to believe we'll live."

"I know that," he said. "But that's hard to do right now."

I glanced around. The looks on people's faces were grim. No one really believed we'd get out alive.

I thought of the thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the Iris Message. The destruction. The death. Would that happen if we kept going?

I didn't want that to happen.

"So, disagreement aside," said someone in the group, "how long are we staying here? An hour? Two? A day?"

"A day? We need rest. I say two days," said Lola.

Zachary was outraged. "We are _not_ staying for two days. We can go wherever we want in this town for _today_, but we leave in the morning. Is that understood?"

Lola scoffed. "Look at us. _Look at us,_ Zachary. We're tired. Most of us have bags under our eyes from sleep deprivation, some of us look like we're gonna faint, and I can see that ALL of us are still hungry. Do you not see that? We can't stay for a day. Two days, at _least_. We need to stop worrying about the quest for just one moment and breathe. Smell the roses."

Zachary didn't appear as if he was able to disagree with that. "But—"

"No 'buts', Zachary. All in favor of staying for more than a day?"

Everyone raised their hands except Zachary and Corry.

"Majority rules," Rosa announced. "Get comfortable, folks, we're staying."

"It's _my_ quest," Zachary argued.

"Fine. We'll just contact Chiron," Lola told him.

"Why?"

"Ask him if we can rest, of course."

"What? You're really using Chiron against me? I _can't_ argue with—"

"Exactly!" we all said in unison.

Gordon brought out a drachma and walked over to the lake. We followed.

"O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept our offering, and show us Chiron, at Camp Half-Blood, New York," he told the water, and he threw the coin in. It vanished.

Soon, Chiron appeared.

"Chiron!" Lola shouted.

He turned to us. "Ah, hello. How is the quest going?"

"Fine, fine," Zachary mumbled. "Tell them we cannot stay for two days."

"No, tell _him_ we need to rest!" Lola argued.

"We need to get to McKenna!"

"Like one day will make a difference!"

"It might!"

"Look at us, we're tired!"

"Who cares? Think of how McKenna is feeling right now!"

"I know she must feel awful, but she's waited this long, she can wait a day more."

"How dare you!"

"I won't dare if you just listen to me!"

"Stop!" came Chiron's voice.

"Yes, sir," they both said at once, subdued.

"I believe this is a matter for the quest leader to decide—"

"YES!"

"—_but,_ if majority rules—"

"Which it does!" Lola said.

"—and you're that tired—"

"Which we are!" Rosa said helpfully.

"—then you may stay for two days."

"YES!"

"NO!"

"And I would advise resting, as well, because—"

"WHAT?"

"—_because,_ you need your strength if you are to be of any help to McKenna."

"But Chiron—"

"Don't 'but' Chiron," Lola chided.

"I cannot believe this. Cannot, cannot, cannot."

"You don't have to believe, dearie. It's happening no matter your belief," said Lola smugly.

"Lola—"

Chiron safely decided to leave the conversation and disconnected the message, leaving us with an angry Zachary and a smug Lola, neither of which were very attractive, especially not mixed.

"HEY, SHUT IT!" shouted Penelope.

It was suddenly deathly quiet.

"Arguing won't help. Just get over it and settle in."

That coming from an Ares kid, we happily obliged and went into our cabins.

This cabin was a huge improvement to my cabin at camp. For one thing, there was no boar head mounted above the door on the outside. For another thing, there was no litter on the floor. It was cramped. Sure, the bunk beds weren't as big as the ones at camp, but we'd live.

Of course, Lola got the top bunk. She always got the best things. First shotgun in the car. Now she was upgrading to claiming the top bunk. That girl was devious.

"I did it. I won. I am victorious once more," she kept saying.

"Lola. You can stop saying that now. Really, we won't mind if you stop."

"Aww, come on. I won."

I sighed. "Look, everyone else is gone except us, Jasmine, Annika, and Giselle, and they're only here because they found a board game in the closet. Why don't you just go enjoy yourself somewhere in the town? You know. Have fun. Like everyone else."

"I don't see you going anywhere soon," she countered.

"Because I'm exhausted. I'm not going anywhere unless someone makes me, and that someone will not be you, I can tell you that."

"Ugh. Fine, I'll go find an arcade or something. Later."

She left the cabin, and soon I was alone. I knew that Jasmine and the others were in the other room (the closet was so huge that it could be considered a second room, and thus far, the girls had decided it was cool in there, so they'd taken turns hiding in it together and probably sharing secrets and giggling), but I didn't really feel like talking to people right now, so I stayed where I was.

And completely flipped out when the Iris Message came.

"Ahhh!"

"Eve!" David said worriedly.

"What? Did Katie run off?"

"Yes! I tried to stop her, but she turned me into a pansy. I was lucky someone finally heard me calling for help and turned me back."

I laughed at the thought of someone being turned into a flower. A boy, no less.

"Is she in the Labyrinth?"

"Probably," he breathed. "I don't know. I can't contact her, so she probably is."

I groaned. Why hadn't she listened to me?

"Here," I said. "I'm going to contact Isabelle. She's on her way, so maybe Katie's found her."

He nodded grimly. "Alright. Make sure she's safe, okay? She's my sister."

I nodded and tried a smile. "I will."

He disconnected.

I went down to the lake with a drachma in hand. I said the incantation, and asked for Katie first. It didn't work, and my drachma just floated in the water, rather than going through. Then I tried Isabelle.

She showed up walking up a hill, Sacramento by her side.

"Isabelle!" I shouted.

"Hm?" she said. Then she saw the message.

"Oh, hi Eve," she said kindly. "What's wrong?"

"Katie Gardner. She left the camp, she went into the Labyrinth, looking for the old search party."

"What? No! That's too dangerous! Is she crazy?"

"Must be," I murmured. "Isabelle, if you see her, contact me straightaway, alright?"

"Will do," she agreed.

"Thank you. I've been telling her not to. But apparently begging and pleading and threatening doesn't work on her."

She smiled. "I'll let you know if she walks by."

"Thanks again," I said. Then I disconnected.

I fished another drachma from my bag and asked for David.

"Is she okay?" he asked.

"No clue. I told Isabelle to keep an eye out."

"Thank you."

"No problem."

I disconnected and went back to the cabin. But before I got to the door, I was stopped short.

By Greg.

As relieved as I was that he wasn't dead like he had been in my vision, I really needed rest right now.

"Greg, step aside."

"I had something I wanted to ask you."

I moaned. "What?"

"There's a food place I found somewhere in the town, and almost everyone else is there. You want to come?"

"Greg, I need rest."

"We all do, but look at everyone else. They're having a good time."

I sighed. "After I get some shut eye, okay?"

"Okay," he said happily.

I moaned and opened the door to the cabin, and I would have slammed it shut if the last remaining girls hadn't decided to leave right at that moment. So I lay down on my temporary bed and finally got some sleep.

And sadly, the thing I hated most came with the wonderful thing I call sleep. It starts with a 'dr' and ends with an 'eams'. Put the two together and you get 'dreams'.

I saw McKenna, of course. She was still in her holding cell and she looked even sicker than the last time. Sick, unhealthy, deathly pale, almost withered.

She was crying, obviously. I wished I could comfort her, but even if I could, I wasn't sure she'd let me. Sometimes people didn't want comfort.

I don't know how long I watched her cry. But however long that was, I was quite tired of seeing this. I'd seen this too many times and I'd rather watch a horse poop on Lola's head at this rate.

Luckily, the dream switched.

Unfortunately, I saw another chasm.

It was dark and cold. I didn't see a thing. And while I was focused on not falling into the pit, it came.

It was as dark and cold as the chasm, I can tell you that. It sounded like daggers screeching against a rock. Maybe worse.

_Hero_, he said coldly.

Knowing his monsters seemed to be calling McKenna this, too, I didn't answer. Maybe McKenna was here. Maybe I could help now before things got ugly.

After waiting a minute with no response from me, he spoke. _Servants, come. I do not believe she is here._

I smirked. I'd tricked him.

"Yes, l-lord?" said a tentative voice that I recognized entirely. It belonged to a certain half-blood named Drake O'Johnsford.

_They get ever closer. I would say they reside in that place, that Color…coloreda…color—_

"Colorado," corrected a female voice. "Field says they're in Colorado right now. We'll send our fiercest monsters there quickly. And it's all thanks to Field that we have some time on our hands now. He planted that thought in the Ruman girl's head to stay."

_Field Lent? I must say I'm impressed. He didn't look like he'd amount to much. We shall reward him later. What did he do?_

Even through the darkness, I could feel Leslie's smug grin. "Before they came to a stop in that small town, they were walking on their merry way to save their precious McKenna. Field told me earlier that he'd tried to talk to her. The Ruman girl refused to speak to him, but he started talking about how tired he was. How he needed a rest. Then he asked her if she was tired and she grumbled a lame, 'Yes.' He didn't say any more, but I'm fairly certain that that is what got the idea stuck in that fool head of hers."

"He tried to convince the van Cleaven girl, as well, and several others. But Ruman seemed to listen most," Drake added.

_You've taught him well. Soon all those Greeks will be in our clutches. Send the fiercest monsters after them, servants._

"Yes, master," the two said in unison. They almost left when I shouted, "HEY!"

I felt them snap their heads towards my voice. I knew their eyes were on me.

"How long have you been here?" Leslie snarled.

"The entire time," I spat.

I felt their bodies about a foot away. Easy enough to kill me. But if they killed me in a dream, I'd still wake up. Right?

Right?

"Who are you?" Drake demanded.

I didn't say 'daughter of Ares', 'Eve Benson', 'a demigod' or anything. I stayed silent. But I already knew from Isabelle that children of the same gods had connections.

And Leslie was a daughter of Ares, too.

Leslie growled. "Relative. I feel the Ares blood in her veins. Leave her for now."

_Eve Benson_, Kronos roared.

"What makes you think that, peabrain?" I said in a tough voice. I had to sound as much like Penelope or Clarisse as possible, so they wouldn't know.

_You're the only female child of Ares on this quest,_ he rumbled.

"No, I'm not, you blabber-mouth Titan!" I shouted. I hoped I sounded like Penelope. "That pathetic Eve Benson is there, too. But she's not nearly as strong as me, Penelope! I'll crush you like—"

"You don't fool me," Leslie retorted. "You're lying, Eve Beth Benson."

I tried to channel whatever Ares-ness she was using, to get her full name out of her. Her fears. Something that would be of use to me.

Then I smirked. "So what if I am, Leslie Emma Davis? Are you going to hurt me? Because I know how to hurt you. You ran away from home when you were…oh, ten years old…you went to Camp Half-Blood for three years. You loved it there, didn't you, Leslie? You had friends. A family. People who actually cared for you, rather unlike your Titan camp. And then you realized how many people were left unclaimed. You were mad at the gods for that. So you left. Joined the Titan army in the hopes that the gods would be destroyed. You're also afraid of war."

Leslie looked like she could kill me, and that was saying something, considering I could barely see her. "Dying in war," she corrected.

I shook my head. "No, no. I can feel your emotions just like you can feel mine. You don't like war, either, Leslie. You're like me."

"I am not like any one of you freaks at that camp."

"Well, I'm not at camp. So technically, you can still be like me."

She snarled, but refrained from hitting me.

"Let's leave, Drake," she ordered.

Soon, Kronos and I were alone.

_Beware the knife that ends your life_, he warned. _And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life._

And the dream changed.

I was at camp with Rachel Dare, in the attic of the Big House.

"What is it you wanted to tell me, Rachel?" I asked.

"A prophecy," she said real seriously.

_That's bad news,_ I thought.

I braced myself.

Rachel went unconscious for a moment, and I made to help her up, but she grabbed on to me, got up, and started to shake my shoulders. Her eyes were bright green (no pupils, no whites, just green) and she was spewing green mist from her mouth. She looked crazy.

"_Beware the knife that ends your life,_

_And suffer terrible strife as the knife ends your life,_

_Death is your responsibility,_

_For it will end the prophecy,_

_All will be well,_

_And friends will cry for the one who fell."_

Then she let go of my shoulders, but she said something else.

"_But death by one's worst enemy shall one endure."_

She went back to normal and nearly collapsed, but I stopped her from falling.

"W-what did I say?" she asked. She could never remember her prophecies once she'd spouted them. It was like she was in a daze, or a trance.

I repeated the prophecy.

She looked scared. "You'll have to die. I don't know when. But you will have to die."

My dreams usually talked about someone else. I hoped this was one of those times.

"When will Eve and her friends get back?" I asked.

Good. It wasn't me.

But who was it? Who'd die?

"Soon. I can sense it. They already gave back the lyre."

Clearly, they were talking about the old quest, the one we'd had a year ago.

"Do I have to keep it a secret?"

Rachel nodded. "You don't want your friends to worry about you. Especially Eve. She may not like everyone, and I may not know her well yet, but I can definitely tell she would worry about you."

I frowned. "Okay."

The dream changed.

"Eve!"

Isabelle stood there, not only with Sacramento, but with Katie Gardner.

I should have been grateful that Isabelle had found her. But right now I was mad at Katie for leaving. I could be grateful later.

"Katie Gardner, what is wrong with you? Go back to Camp," I ordered.

"Eve, she's agreed to help me," Isabelle said.

I looked at Isabelle. "You've got to be joking."

"She rarely jokes," Sacramento piped up.

I looked at Katie. "Why did you leave?"

"I already told you. I felt guilty for escaping when the others didn't."

I understood, but it didn't make me happy.

"We need to get moving," Isabelle said to me.

The dream changed.

It was what I'd seen in the Iris Message passageway. The world in red, buildings destroyed, Ares children to blame, Empire State Building crumbling, everyone dead.

I cried again. I made one last feeble attempt to wake up my friends. I didn't care if this was a dream, I wanted at least one demigod up. But no one would wake. It was pointless to try.

"Eve."

My head snapped up. Where did that come from?

"Eve. Get up."

Someone was shaking me.

Then I woke up, Lola shaking me and telling me to wake up.

I hugged her, disregarding her confused expression. She was alive.

"What is it?" I asked her once I'd pulled away, and sat down on my bed.

"Greg's outside. He asked if you were awake."

And how glad I was to be awake.

"What does he want?" I asked, though I already knew.

"He said something about food. He didn't feel like intruding, so he asked me to come in to get you."

"Food? Oh, yeah. He asked about that earlier. I guess I'll see you later."

"Alright. If you need me, Kyle wants a rematch in that game I beat him at in the arcade, so I'll be over there."

"Okay then." I got up and went to the door. "Bye Lola."

"Later," she murmured.

I opened the door and went outside. Greg was standing there, of course.

"Ready?"

I nodded. "But are you sure everyone else is there, or are you making this up?"

"Well, maybe not _everyone_, but some of them."

I smirked. "I knew you were exaggerating."

"At least I'm not lying," he said.

"You're right," I mumbled.

We sat in awkward silence for a moment.

"So…are we going or not?" I asked.

"Right," he garbled to himself.

We walked to wherever-he-was-taking-me, and finally we reached a HUGE building that I could tell was freakishly fancy. I almost wanted to gag.

"Are you sure that's it?" I asked warily.

He nodded. "Too fancy?" he asked knowingly.

"Oh, yeah."

"Agreed. But the food is decent, at least."

"Fine."

We went in, sat down, ordered, all that boring stuff that you don't care about. But I'll tell you one thing—when I looked around, I saw no one I knew.

"Greg," I said.

"What?"

"You said there were people here. There's people, but not _our_ people. Are you lying to me?"

He looked around and frowned, but I almost saw a smile there. "They were here earlier."

"Hm."

"Well, we can't leave now. We ordered."

And then I realized something. He'd meant for them to not be here. He didn't want anyone to see that he was with me. Or was he trying to make it so no one saw that _I_ was with _him_? Was he trying to protect me from Rico or someone nagging me about it?

Whatever it was, I was suddenly glad no one was here. No one could harass me about it later.

When the food came, we ate, but Greg tried to talk to me anyway. Sometimes I would reply, but most of the time I would just keep eating and listening. He didn't seem to care either way. Maybe it was because I was even there. Maybe it was because ignoring and doing what I wanted to do was the way I was, and he didn't want me to suddenly turn into some lifeless, sophisticated loser. I didn't know.

There was some guy up on a stage who had been talking the entire time. Pathetic jokes, random comments, things that put others in stitches but only left me confused. But now he had orders that I didn't feel like following through with.

"All right, everyone, get up and grab a partner, because we're going to dance!" said Annoying Dude in an enthusiastic tone that made me want to punch his lights out.

While everyone but Greg, me, and some random girl in the corner of the place that looked depressed got up to dance while the romantic music played, I looked at my friend with suspicion. "Did you know—"

"No, honest," he said truthfully. His eyes told me that he was telling the truth.

"I see some people that aren't getting up!" said Annoying Dude happily.

I groaned. I raised an eyebrow at Greg, like, _Is this guy serious?_

Greg gave me a look that said, _I think he is._

"Get up!" said Annoying Dude again.

Greg looked at me. "Listen or ignore?" he asked.

"Might as well listen," I muttered. "It'll get rid of him faster."

He nodded in agreement and we got up grudgingly (well, I don't know about him, but I got up grudgingly) and tried to do what the others were doing, but we only tripped on each other's feet.

"Can you dance?" he mouthed.

"No," I mouthed back.

"Neither can I," he whispered.

I tried to watch what everyone else was doing, but nothing helped. But then I saw someone familiar.

There was a couple watching us, and they were decked out in fancy things so that I could barely see their faces. A large hat covered the female's face, and the male was wearing sunglasses so you couldn't see his eyes. But they were watching us, very closely, and I took a closer look at them.

The girl had curly blonde hair, hazel eyes that were reddish brown, pale skin, and the tip of a bright red scar peeping out of her sleeve. She was staring at me intently. The look in her eyes said, _What's wrong with you?_

The boy had messy black hair, light brown eyes that you could barely see through the glasses, a light tan, and he was staring at us just as much as the girl. He looked almost—_almost_—as upset as his dance partner.

"Greg," I said.

"What?"

"See those two over there?"

He looked to where the couple was. "Yeah, why?"

"You know that's Lola and Kyle, right?"

Greg spluttered. "What?"

"Look at them closely."

After he'd observed, he said, "Yep, that's Kyle, alright. I told them not to follow."

They noticed we were staring at them now and quickly looked to the girl in the corner, who was also starting to look like someone I knew.

"That's like begging them to follow!" I said irritably.

"Yeah, should have thought that over," he said. He was about to confront them when Annoying Dude gave more orders.

"Now lean in and give your partner a kiss!" he said enthusiastically. The look on his face was ecstatic.

_WHAT!_ I thought. _No, no, no, and no again! NO WAY!_

Greg looked at me with fear. He hadn't planned for this. No doubt he was trying to go one step at a time, but this was leaping quite a few of the steps.

I saw everyone else kiss. Even Lola grudgingly kissed Kyle's cheek.

I moved my head around so we couldn't. But Annoying Dude persisted.

"I see you! Wow, you two are real downers, aren't you?" The entire place laughed, except for Lola and Kyle and of course, us.

I didn't care this time. He could make me dance, but he could not make me kiss Greg.

I stared at the girl in the corner instead, and then realized why she looked familiar.

She had long dark hair and a sad face. I didn't even need to see her eyes to know it was Rosa van Cleaven. At least it made sense for her to be following us. She was a daughter of Aphrodite, the love goddess.

"Come on!" Annoying Dude yelled.

"NO!" I shouted back. "We're friends!"

Luckily, Greg backed me. "Yeah!"

"Friends going to dinner?" he countered.

I could punch this guy, but I decided to be better than that.

"Listen or ignore?" I asked Greg.

"I know you'd rather ignore."

"Exactly, but unless we leave there's no getting rid of him."

"Are you saying-?"

"Come on! Do it! Do it!" Annoying Dude chanted. Soon half of the restaurant was chanting.

I struggled to not go up to the stage and knock him unconscious, but I somehow desisted.

I looked at Greg. What were we going to do?

"Leave," he suggested.

"He'll only get upset with us for that, and besides, the Aphrodite kids are bound to hear about it since Rosa's here—" he froze at that "—and they'll just want revenge for ruining one of their 'happily ever after' moments."

"So you're saying we just have to get it over with."

I sighed. "Yes."

He looked at me like I was dead crazy. But he started to lean in.

I hesitantly started to lean in.

And all Hades broke loose.

The crowd went wild, I heard Lola and Kyle scream (mostly Lola), I heard Rosa squeal, and I heard my mind go to war with what I was doing. Okay, maybe I didn't _literally_ hear my brain scream at me, but it sure felt like it. I mean…I was kissing my friend.

_Maybe the word 'friend' is irrelevant,_ part of my brain said.

_Or maybe you're stupid,_ said the part of my brain that I liked more.

_Love is never stupid,_ said the part of my brain I didn't like.

_LOVE?_ screamed my side of the fight. _One word: PLATONIC._

_Platonic? You're silly._

_Go away!_

_You go away, party pooper!_

_You're as stupid as Annoying Dude!_

_No one is as stupid as him, _said the other side, _but he's helping._

_Helping? MENTALLY SCARRING, more like._

_Shut up._

_Hm…nope._

I broke away and glared at Annoying Pest Dude. "HAPPY?" I screamed.

"YEEEESSSS!" he shouted, along with most of the room.

I glared. "Come on," I told Greg, who still looked dazed by either my decision or what had just happened.

I stormed out of the place, Greg following closely behind.

"Humiliating," I muttered as I walked back to where our cabins were.

"Agreed. I didn't think it would happen, but I didn't think it would happen by force."

"You didn't think it would happen? I figured you'd force it sooner or later, the way you've been so obvious."

"No way."

"Good."

I was about to storm into my cabin, when I stopped. "You tricked me, didn't you?"

"What?"

"You knew they were all gone. And you knew that if I thought others were there, I'd feel better about going. But they weren't there. You tricked me into going on a date with you, Greg Willins."

"More or less."

I moaned. "You're too smart, you know. I won't be so easy to trick next time you try anything like that."

And then I stormed into the cabin, and somehow Lola and Rosa had beaten me there. It was only them. The others must have still been out.

And that's when I received an ear-load.

"EVE BETH BENSON, HOW DARE YOU GO ON A DATE WITH HIM, HE'S TOO DESPERATE AND YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND AND—"

"Lola!" Rosa called her off.

"—HOW DARE YOU KISS HIM OUT OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL AND—"

"Lola!" Rosa said louder.

"—HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME AND—"

"LOLA, I was tricked!" I told her.

"—AND—wait, what? That idiot of a boy tricked you?"

"Yes."

"You should have left when you found out."

"Problem—only found out just now."

"Hmph. But really, how dare you not leave! HOW DARE YOU LISTEN TO THAT STUPID GUY ON THE STAGE AND—"

I decided to just ignore her now. Stopping her wouldn't help.

After a while, Lola's voice started to break and she gave up trying to yell, but she did look at her sword a few times, like she really wanted to run Greg through with it.

I lay down on my bed in exasperation. This was some day. Best or worst, I couldn't tell, but it was a really awkward day.

Lola eventually went out for some fresh air (and I was glad to see she left her weapons behind), and then Rosa went all giggly and girly and Aphrodite-y.

Which was weird.

"Did you love it?" she asked excitedly.

"No," I answered.

"No?" she said in a melancholy tone. "You stink. Oh, well. Mom isn't going to make this easy for you." I heard a smidgen of sadness there, as if her mom had made things hard for her, too. Meaning Simon.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're a child of Ares, Benson. Greg's dad is Hephaestus. They hate each other. They fight over my mom. Your parents sooooo won't approve."

"Approve of what, Rosa? Nothing happened."

"Sure. Nothing. Like I didn't see that kiss."

"Blame that idiot on the stage."

"Aww, he was only trying to help."

"I'd rather Kristen force me. At least I know her," I snapped.

"Wow, you're really mad about this, aren't you?"

Ugh…why did she have to ask that question? My brain was conflicted. At war.

I didn't answer.

She just smirked and started to leave.

I heard a snapping sound, but it was only Rosa cracking her knuckles before opening the door.

But I could have sworn that after that snap, something clicked inside my brain. One side of the war had won, and it was not the side that I had hoped would win.

Why did my heart insist something I was afraid of admitting?

* * *

**Like? Love? Hate? Whatever, just review :B**

**Smash names are either Eg or Greve. Or Evreg. I like Greve best, personally.**


	14. Disturbances

**Sacred Sparta, I am SO SO SO SO SO SO sorry for the delay! I've been really busy AND I've had this wicked case of writer's block ever since January. But this will make up for it. I promise. There's a lot of stuff in this chapter.**

**Ugh. So much has happened in life that i don't even have the time to tell you.**

**I'm sick of disclaimers. I won't even bother this time. You know all I own is my characters and plot line.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**Disturbances**

When she came back, Lola was still fuming.

"I hate that guy!" she repeated incessantly. "How could he do that? I'm going to kill him! That should be easy, considering I'm—"

"A child of Hades who really shouldn't hold grudges?" I offered.

"Yes, except for that last part. What's wrong with me holding a grudge against someone? I do it all the time," she replied nonchalantly.

"I heard somewhere it was a really bad fatal flaw for children of Hades."

"And where did you hear that? What's a fatal flaw?"

"I forget. ADHD, remember? But a fatal flaw is…well…a fatal flaw. It's a flaw so bad it can get you killed. We all have one."

"Hmph. That doesn't sound nice. And Greg isn't nice anymore, either. When I get my hands on him—" This was ADHD Lola, connecting things to other things entirely. It never ended prettily.

"He'll be begging for mercy and you'll hold your Hades-y grudge anyway?"

"Why are you defending him?" she asked fiercely. Her eyes blazed like a fire, flickering flames inside of her hazel-red eyes.

That was the same question I had asked myself when I found out Katie didn't like Greg at all. I'd gotten really defensive when she wouldn't tell me why she hated him. I wouldn't forget how I'd felt then. And then, I had tried to convince myself that it was because he was my friend. But was it?

"I don't know," I mumbled honestly. This couldn't happen to me. Affectionate feelings should not come to me _now_. Not on a quest. That could be bad. Really, really bad. Fatally bad.

Fatally bad.

Fatal.

Fatal flaw.

I figured it was pride. But I realized now that that wasn't entirely the issue here. That was hardly the fatal flaw.

My fatal flaw was love.

That was why I had cared about Annoying Dude getting angry earlier. My brain said to leave, but my fatal flaw ticked away, and suddenly, I cared. It was hard to explain.

And it was why I didn't quite mind anymore what had happened. My heart seemed to want it, even if my brain said otherwise.

I found all this highly disturbing. I didn't want this to happen.

"Lola, I need some sleep, okay? I'm going to bed." I made sure all my belongings were in place, made sure the dagger was well concealed yet easily attainable in the bedside drawer, and tucked myself into the covers of the hard, shabby, and pathetic bed. I didn't _really_ need sleep. I was just trying to avoid Lola's impending wrath.

Lola got tucked herself in up in the top bunk, but I didn't know that she was armed, because out of nowhere, her Stygian iron sword went through the structure of the bunk bed and narrowly missed my face by centimeters.

"DUDE, what was that for?" I shrieked.

She only groaned at me, muttered something incomprehensible about Greg and traitors, took the sword out and sheathed it, and never made a sound again.

"You could have killed me, you know!" I screeched.

There was no response.

_Lola, what is wrong with you today?_ I asked myself. _Okay, so Greg tricks me into something, so? It's not my fault, yet she acts like I did everything on purpose and I'm a total traitor. I don't get that. She's acting more like a child of Ares than me, which, I mean, isn't really hard to do, I suppose, but still. If she wants to blame, she can blame Greg…no, not Greg. He hadn't planned for _that_. So I guess you can blame the annoying man insisting that we kiss, right? Right?_

But when I went to sleep, I did not expect more dreams. I really should have, but I didn't. And I didn't like what I got, either.

First thing I got was a glimpse of McKenna crying and trying to soothe herself, but that didn't last long. It barely lasted for a few seconds.

The second thing I saw was Isabelle, Sacramento, and Katie. I didn't get how this thing worked for Katie. How she could see me and I could see her. She wasn't a child of Morpheus, and this was only supposed to work for children of Morpheus, last I checked. Maybe Isabelle was doing that. I didn't feel like thinking on it.

"Eve? You doing okay over there?" Isabelle asked tentatively.

"Yeah, why?" I asked. In honesty, I was under-doing it. I was more than fine. If fine meant great, then I guess you could say I was fine, but in the usual language of the normal people, fine doesn't mean great, so I guess I was more than fine in reality. Oh, well. Best not let ADHD get ahead of me.

"No reason. Just checking in," she replied. "What's going on over there?"

I told her everything except the part with Greg. Katie really wouldn't like that, and I didn't feel like arguing with her right now.

"Wow, Chiron disagreed with Zachary? That's strange."

"Strange, but we're enjoying ourselves thus far," I remarked. At least, I was starting to enjoy myself .

"Hey, Eve?" Katie asked tentatively.

"Yes?" I asked. She looked worried.

"Is…well, I just wanted to know…is…is Travis okay?" Katie asked.

"Travis Stoll?" I looked to confirm.

"Er, yes."

"Why?"

"Um, Connor wants to know."

"But...you haven't been at Camp...how would he have asked you, considering he probably doesn't even know you left?"

"...He Iris Messaged me."

"No he didn't," Sacramento whispered.

"Shhh!" Isabelle scolded.

"He's fine," I said warily.

She breathed lightly. "Ok, good."

I eyed her suspiciously. I knew Travis and his brother, Connor, always played tricks and pranks on the camp (them and Kristen would be a disaster), especially the Demeter cabin because Katie was so easy to prank. If you had ever been to Camp Half-Blood, you would know that it's just common knowledge there. What I didn't know was why she cared now.

"Is that all?" I asked them. Sacramento seemed to look very pleased, possibly because she was in on Isabelle's secret plan. Either that or she also seemed to grasp the notion that I was grasping.

"Yeah," Isabelle said. "Sweet dreams."

Then it shifted.

I saw the same thing I'd seen before: the world in red, everything destroyed, friends dead, and Ares children to blame for it all.

I tried yet again to wake them all up. It didn't work, of course. If it did, I'd be really surprised, honestly. But no. They stayed dead, no matter what I did.

I heard Simon's voice in my head. _Please don't mess this up._

It was too late for that. I hadn't done anything, as far as I knew, but it was destroyed anyway. Only in my dreams, but nonetheless.

But maybe now wasn't time for dreams.

I had to be careful out there, not here. It didn't matter here. I had to not mess things up in the real world. Who cared if I messed up in a dream?

I got up and left, to go be independent. It didn't matter if I messed up, because it was a dream. So I went to tell those Ares kids what was wrong with them.

But sadly, I woke up before it could ever happen.

It was morning now, thank goodness. Another day. And we'd be spending that day in town, considering Zachary couldn't make us go anywhere.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I couldn't go to see Lola, seeing as she would probably rip my head off. I didn't want to talk to Rosa, what with her being weird and all with her strange talk of love. I was most certainly not going to talk to Greg. That was a matter for another time. Talking to him right now would ultimately destroy me, and I don't recommend being destroyed, to be perfectly honest. Kyle was always an option, but he would either say, "TEAM GREG AND EVE!", "How COULD you? You INSULT me," or would be entirely useless and start talking about something no one cared about.

There were a few other options. I could talk to Isabelle, but I was annoyed with her for letting Katie in on her plan, and I was not about to go face Katie, either. I supposed I could talk to Sacramento, but with her being so young, I doubt she'd be able to help me with anything. I mean, there was a such thing as just talking, but with what happened to me that wasn't easy to do.

I could try to Iris Message the Titan camp to find McKenna. That would be the smart thing to do, considering no one else seemed to have thought of that yet, not one out of the lot of them. It would be important to know where she was, her health status, how long she had left to live. But I couldn't bring myself to worry her more by proving that we were coming. She didn't _want_ us to come. It would crush her to see living, tangible proof that we were risking our lives for her. I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me. So I pushed that option aside.

I could talk to Zachary, perhaps. Ask about McKenna and whatnot. But I was more than sure he didn't want to talk about that.

I'd say Jasmine would be an option, but I knew her too well, and she would pester me with questions, like: did I like Greg in that way, or how was the quest treating me, or why did Apollo claim me last year, or something like that that I wouldn't have an answer for. I couldn't deal with infuriating questions right now, especially not from a twelve year old that was too curious about my upbringing. Or at least not one who acted like I was her older sister. Being an older sister wasn't my thing.

I might be able to talk to Corry, but I didn't really know him, and asking him about his captured girlfriend who would have to be going insane by now and was being mocked by monsters every day and was definitely losing sleep and health over worrying about us would be just as painful as asking Lola about an Aethiopian drakon, or asking Zachary about McKenna.

I suppose I could talk to other people on the quest. But who was there to talk to? I wasn't going to touch Field with a ten foot pole, and I was smarter than to go to Penelope about boy problems. I could see it now:

"Penelope, I've got a boy problem."

"Got a problem, eh? I'll fix that for ya."

Cue Penelope conking me on the head with a frying pan.

Yeah. That wasn't happening.

Going to Kristen would be as insane as...well, Kristen. I didn't really know anyone else on the quest, to be honest. There were my brothers, Gordon and Rico, but they wouldn't be of any help. Who else was there?

I could think of everyone's names, and I knew them all individually, that much was a fact. But who to talk to? Travis might be good to talk to. He had a sense of humor more than a mile high, which would help me out of my moping state. And I could ask him about why Katie wondered if he was okay.

I had the awkward feeling that Travis Stoll and Katie Grander liked each other.

Well, at least that meant I wasn't the only one with issues right now.

I'd keep that in mind.

Before I fully decided who to go to, I ran over a few other people in my mind. I could talk to Louis. He was good company and would probably be able to help out at least a little. I'd have to keep him in mind, too.

I didn't think I could bear talking to Chiron. He wasn't the reason I was on this quest, but he was the one who declared all the quests, offered people quests, made the rules for quests. And here I was, on a quest. Though it was indirectly, I was here because of him, and I couldn't talk to him with that knowledge at hand.

Trying to contact Annabeth and the others wasn't out of the question. It wouldn't work, I knew, and it would probably just make me more frustrated, but it was worth a shot.

I went down to the lake, said the incantation and tossed the drachma into the water.

No response. Like I expected.

Of course, missing people couldn't respond. If they could respond, they would have told people where they were, and if we knew where they were and could find them, they wouldn't be missing, so really, only missing people could be missing and if someone was missing and people knew where they were they were either not missing because someone would undoubtedly go to find them or hopelessly pathetic if they were not sent a search party.

So. That was my logic.

Anyway.

I was left with Travis or Louis to talk to, and I wasn't sure what would be a better option. Someone who could make jokes to make me feel better, and perhaps I might be able to distract myself by focusing on someone else's relationship, or someone who might be able to help me get over my own problems.

Being true to my father's character, I chose the selfish road and decided to help myself by going to Louis instead.

That almost scared me, because that meant I was getting more and more like my father each day. I tried to remember the things I had done. I had challenged Circe, I had hit Field, I had yelled at Katie (though that was justified), I had used my Ares-sibling powers to grasp information from Leslie's very core, and now I was being selfish by choosing to help myself. I mean, either way it seemed a tiny bit selfish because no matter who I went to, it would be helping myself. But if I chose Travis, I might be able to help him a little in the process. But with my choice to talk to Louis, that couldn't really benefit him in the way that it might Travis.

But I shook it off. Found my composure and went to scout out Louis.

Sadly, it is apparently REALLY hard to find children of Hermes.

I had to look in the arcade, the restaurants, the cabin, even the Port-o-Potty outside the cabins, which was a new personal low in terms of places I've looked for people.

Instead, I found him in the woods. Being a son of Hermes, you would think he'd be out pranking people, not sitting in a tree gazing up at the leaves. But what do I know? Maybe he was building a trap up there and was staring at the leaves because he was trying to think of a good way to put them in someone's food and give them some poisoning.

I doubted it. But you know, that's just me, trying to make people be in character.

Really ironic coming from a daughter of Ares who doesn't act much like one.

"Louis?" I asked.

He jumped a little, and if I'd startled him any worse, he may have fallen out of the tree.

"Hm? What?"

"I just need to talk to someone," I said. "I'm having one of those days."

"And you choose to come to a son of Hermes who may very well have been setting up traps to suspend someone in midair with rope. Delighted."

It was like he'd read my mind or something. But I forced myself to forget that and moved on to the conversation. The only problem was that I didn't exactly know how to start this. I couldn't just say, 'So, I kissed Greg last night and I may or may not have enjoyed myself. Help me, guy I barely know.' That would be really stupid.

"So, I heard you and Greg-"

"Yeah," I stopped him abruptly so he couldn't finish the sentence. I didn't like to think about it. "How did you know?"

"Kyle," he explained with a laugh. "He talks a LOT."

"Did you just figure that out?"

"No. I figured that out a few years ago when he hadn't been claimed yet and was in my cabin. He was in the sleeping bag next to my bunk. He stayed up _all night_ talking to me about his excitement of what was going on. Literally all night. I'm pretty sure I only got about three hours of sleep that night."

"That sounds like him," I murmured.

"Do you need to get anything off your chest or did you come here to distract yourself?"

That was Louis. Getting to the point of things. I didn't know him well, but I recognized that attribute.

I didn't reply. I didn't have a reply to reply with.

"You don't know," he voiced for me.

I nodded in a lame attempt to respond.

"Well then," he said cheerily, plucking a leaf off of its place on the tree. "Let's get you distracted, shall we?"

"Um...we shall? I guess?"

He dangled his legs for a moment and then jumped down from the tree, probably scraping his leg upon falling to the dirt. He brushed himself off and got up.

"What'll be a good distraction then, hm? Finding a monster to kill? Talking? Skipping stones? You name it," he offered.

"Are there even monsters here?" I inquired.

"Yessss, there are, Bensssson."

I turned to see who had said that. It certainly wasn't Louis. This was a hissing, snake-like female voice. That description far from fit him.

Of course, with my luck, there were going to be monsters here. There would always be monsters in my life, everywhere I went.

Then I realized something.

We were in a remote town in the middle of the United States. How in Elysium did the monsters find us _here_? That couldn't be a coincidence. We must have had a spy in our group.

Clearly, it was Field. It could be no one else. Who else would betray us, would give us up to Kronos?

The monster facing us was a _dracaena. _Luckily, these were probably the easiest to kill.

Sadly, she had an army of _empousai _behind her.

Well, I shouldn't say 'army'. There were really only four of them, but with how powerful and hard to kill they were, there might as well have been an army.

"And you shouldn't usssse the word 'monssssterssss', Bensssson. That title is sssso harsh, girl."

I hated the way they emphasized the 's' sounds. They weren't able to help it, of course, but it felt like a snake was crawling up my back. Their voices always made me feel that way.

The beasts came forward. Because I wasn't armed, I intended on making a run for it, but Louis warned me not to leave. If I ran, they would follow, and monsters in the middle of a Colorado town wouldn't look so good. The mortals would probably only see a gang of teenagers trying to ambush us, but you never could tell who could see through the Mist. You had to be extra cautious.

Louis, it seemed, was always armed, so he pulled out his gleaming celestial bronze sword and used that to defend himself from the first monster, and quickly pulled out a knife from him belt. Why he held knives and swords in his belt, I didn't know, but I was very grateful for it right now.

He tossed me the sword, and I caught it a little shakily. It's kind of hard to catch a sword singlehandedly while hoping you don't get chopped up by the sword or monsters.

Louis was able to stab an _empousa _right through the middle with his knife, but the snake woman and the other three demons were still going strong.

I hacked and slashed at the _dracaena_, but she wasn't dying. She was being a smart monster and wearing armor. Stupid smart monster.

Luckily, the _dracaena_ was seemingly wounded for at least a moment, so I could focus on the creepy vampire-like thing that was closing in on me. She looked almost comical with one bronze leg and one donkey leg, but the rest of her was truly terrifying.

"Back off!" I yelled, trying to look threatening. My attempts only came off as weak, though, because she just laughed at me and tried to attack me again. I managed to lop off one of her arms, and she crumbled into that weird monster dust. I restrained myself from grinning and went in on the snake woman. She was still on the ground, defenseless. I made my move and soon enough, she, too, turned into that weird powdery, glittery dust that monsters turn into when they die.

Now it was down to two _empousai_. They were both trying to turn Louis into their next buffet, but I wasn't going to have that happen. I slashed at one of them, trying to distract it. She lashed back at me and sent me tumbling to the ground. I still had my sword, but I was doomed anyway, of course. I had sustained a few scrapes from the landing.

The demon laughed sadistically. I tried to run her through, but she was surprisingly fast for someone with one donkey leg and one mechanical leg. She got away before I could strike.

I managed to bring myself up, but I was pretty sure I'd twisted my leg in a way that it was most definitely not supposed to be twisted in. It really hurt, but I tried to ignore it.

"Oh, Eve Benson. The other one told me you would be easy to fight, but I never imagined it would be _this_ easy. What did you call her again? Mrs. Dailey, was it?"

That set me off like a car alarm.

I planned my attack, but she kept getting away, giggling like a madwoman. Meanwhile, Louis seemed to be giving in.

Louis was clearly entranced by his pursuer. I certainly didn't think she was beautiful, what with the flaming hair and all, but I knew that the Mist affected people in different ways. He might've been seeing someone worthy of Aphrodite. And that was very bad.

He dropped his weapon almost automatically, like he'd had a command. I saw the _empousa_ lean in for the kill.

"Louis!" I shouted, but he didn't seem to hear me. "Louis!"

Maybe it was the Mist, maybe it was a boy thing. I didn't know. But he clearly saw something other than what I saw. Because what I saw was a demon about to kill a teenage boy. If he was seeing that, he wouldn't have dropped his weapon.

I attacked my monster again, but as I sliced away at her, she kept running. And of course, I tried to follow her. But my injured leg gave in, and I toppled to the ground. My sword fell, away from me. The beast picked it up and pointed it at me. I was defenseless. On the ground, a daughter of Ares, utterly hopeless.

"LOUIS!" I cried again, as loudly as I possibly could. This was my last chance.

He seemed to register his name, but did little else. "LOUIS MILLER, SON OF HERMES, SNAP OUT OF IT, YOU FOOL!" I hollered.

The incessant screaming got him back into focus. "Eve, wha-?"

Then he realized the flaming vampire-esque monster standing right in front of his face trying to lure him in.

It would have been stupid to go for his knife. The _empousa_ would kill him if he made one move.

But I couldn't stop fighting my monster, either. If I stopped to protect Louis, my pursuer would most definitely kill me with one swift move, and then I'd be no help to him at all. I couldn't risk that.

I gave it my all to kill that thing, but she wasn't about to stop now. The longer I attacked, the weaker I became, and that made me easier prey.

I fell again, and soon enough, the monster was about to kill me.

"No!" Louis shouted, and he ran at the _empousa_, kicking it away from me before it could lean in for the kill.

Then the other one grabbed him by the arm and threw him to the ground. He managed to grab his knife, but he wasn't fast enough. The _empousa_ sank her fangs into his shoulder as he screamed.

I reached for my sword and killed the injured monster with one slice, then went in on Louis's attacker. Being smart, she backed off, which also meant she got away from Louis. Good.

"You. _Go._ Go tell Kronos and his minions that this isn't finished. We've barely begun, understand?" I growled through gritted teeth.

She actually looked frightened. Obviously, she knew what an Ares kid could do if someone disagreed with them on such a serious matter. The demon ran off. I never found out where she went, but I would eventually discover that the Titan Lord got the message.

I turned my attention to Louis. He was on the ground, bleeding. He was definitely suffering.

"Louis? Louis, hang on. Are you going to be okay?"

"What do you think?" he muttered.

"Right. Stupid question. Do you have ambrosia and nectar? Something?"

He shook his head feebly. He was getting weaker by the second.

"Louis, you've got to hang on. I'm going to go get help, okay?"

Louis shook his head again, though it clearly pained him to do so. And if it hurt him to barely turn his head, we had a serious problem.

"That will only waste time that we don't have," he said quietly. His voice was fading.

"You're weak. You don't know what you're saying."

"No. I do."

"No? What do you mean, no?"

"It takes too long to get help. I'd die while you've left. And I don't want... to die alone..."

It was getting harder and harder to hear him. He was losing consciousness.

"Louis, listen to me. You are not going to die. You're just..." I tried to think of a comforting way of saying dying, but that was pretty impossible.

"Dying?" he said hoarsely, trying to make a joke out of the situation. "Yeah. That's what happens when you get bitten by a monster."

"Louis. Stop it," I ordered. Though I wasn't sure what good it would do for an Ares child to boss around a dying guy. "You're not dying."

"Tell that to...Hades..." Then he went still.

"Louis? LOUIS! NO!"

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't avenge him. I'd sent his killer away. I couldn't just leave his body there. But I couldn't stay either.

I did something I didn't think I would ever do. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cell phone Becca had given me for my birthday and dialed one of the only numbers I even had.

_You _better_ pick up, boy,_ I thought. _You mess things up enough, not picking up will result in your immediate destruction via me._

Luckily, the fool heard his phone ringing.

"Eve? What are you using your phone for, you're gonna get us all killed. Do you know that phones attract monsters? Don't you know the dangers of-"

"Shut up, Kyle! Get help and bring it to the forest, now. Louis is gone."

"What?"

"You heard me, GO!"

"Um, okay..." he said sadly and hung up, off to find help.

And then I cried.

That night I walked by the shore of the beach. I couldn't believe Louis was dead. It was the first casualty I had ever witnessed that wasn't a monster.

I swore I would fight to the death now. Whatever it took. Louis died for me. I couldn't let that hang.

And then I thought about the prophecy.

_There will be many a death, that is for sure._

This was only the beginning.

I was about to start crying again, when the Iris Message appeared.

Katie showed up. No Isabelle and no Sacramento, just Katie.

"I heard," she said.

"How?"

She sighed. "Isabelle told me. She watches dreams whether she wants to or not, and someone was dreaming about it. I'm sorry."

"I don't want to talk about it," I whispered.

"Let's talk about other things, then."

"Field," I grumbled bitterly, "he sent those monsters. The monsters that killed Louis. He's a traitor."

"Why don't you guys kick him off of the quest, then?" Katie asked.

"That's the thing. We can't. Chiron gave us strict orders, we can't disobey him. We're not allowed to leave anyone behind. Not even Field." It wasn't fair. I was more than sure Chiron knew that Field was a traitor. But rules were rules.

"Field is a liar and a traitor, though. Isn't there a loophole?"

I looked at her sadly. "No, not that we know of. But Field's probably basking in the glory of the rule...I hate him. He's a liar. A deceitful, disgraceful liar."

"You're not even kidding. It's in his blood," she told me. "He's not even a son of Khione."

"Who's his parent, then?"

"Apate. Goddess of lies and deceit. It's obvious, isn't it? Besides, whenever we give our food offerings to the gods at Camp, he talks to Apate. I've never once heard the name Khione mentioned."

"Figures. I should have known..."

Of course. Field had lied the entire time. Was there even one moment of truth? Anywhere?

I remembered what I had been told about Isabelle watching his dreams, about him liking me.

That was a very disgusting thought.

He was disgusting.

And of course he would lie about his parentage. He was born to be a liar. Maybe he couldn't help it. But it was clearly something he was made to do. Lie.

Then I realized something. Katie was saddened about Louis, of course. Could I get her to tell me why she hated Greg, now that she would understand I'd be sad and maybe listen to me this time? Would it be possible?

"Katie, you're going to hate me for this..."

I told her everything that had happened. It was clear she was fuming on the inside, but she acted calm outwardly, probably because she didn't want to show too big of a temper.

"I wouldn't get too close to him, Eve."

I looked at Katie with something that was in between utter confusion and a death glare. "What do you mean?"

Katie sighed, playing with her fingers nervously, the Iris Message beginning to look more and more fuzzy, the connection starting to break. "Well, Greg used to...no. I can't tell you."

"Tell me."

She sighed again. "I didn't want to have to tell you. Nobody likes to mention it. Out of the people who know, Kyle is the only one who can accept it...who can forgive him...I can't. Even Isabelle has a bit of a hard time getting over it."

"Just tell me."

Katie looked at me, giving me a piercing look. Not a bad kind of pierce...almost like she pitied me.

"Greg used to be on the bad side."

I couldn't respond. That was too much. "..._What?_"

* * *

**Hope that fixed how long my hiatus was.**

**Did it?**

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**I did.**

**CLIFFHANGER MWAHAHAHAHA.**

**SUCKERS.**

**At least I'm not Rick Riordan. He constantly Rick Rolls us.**

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